The Dred Scott Outrage
A Supreme Court Decision That Divided the Nation
Dred Scott was a Missouri slave who sued John F.A. Sanford for his freedom on the grounds that Scott and his family had once been taken to a part of America where slavery was prohibited. Scott argued that having lived in Illinois and Wisconsin, two areas barring slavery according to the Missouri Compromise, entitled him and his family to freedom. This began an 11-year legal struggle culminating in one of the most controversial decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.
The Court’s decision was rendered in March 1857, a time when divisiveness was peaking between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in America. James Buchanan had just been inaugurated as the new U.S. president, and he was hopeful that the verdict would settle the slavery issue once and for all. In a seven-to-two vote, the Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott was not entitled to his freedom.
The Controversial Decision
Writing the main majority opinion for Scott v. Sandford (Sanford's name was misspelled in the Court record) was Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. His reasoning consisted of four controversial points:
1. Because of the historical precedent among whites for centuries, blacks “were so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” This meant that blacks, either slave or free, were not considered U.S. citizens, and the Supreme Court could not confer citizenship on a person.
2. Because Dred Scott was a black man, he was not a U.S. citizen. Taney cited various laws limiting or denying black citizenship in many states, particularly in the North. If a person was not a citizen, he could not be protected by the Constitution, and thus had no right to sue in federal court.
These first two points meant that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the dispute, thus upholding the lower court decision that Scott was not entitled to freedom. However Taney went even further with two more points that solidified the decision’s controversial legacy:
3. Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom just because he had lived in Illinois and Wisconsin because the Missouri Compromise which had banned slavery in those areas was unconstitutional. Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in any territory, thus opening the door for expanding slavery.
4. Slaves, being property of their masters, could not be confiscated by the federal government because it violated the Fifth Amendment. Thus slaveholders were effectively entitled to take their slaves into any territory or state regardless of whether or not slavery was allowed.
Dissenting Opinions
The two dissenting opinions argued that once the Court determined it did not have jurisdiction to hear Scott’s case, it should have gone no further. The opinions also noted that the Missouri Compromise should not have been found unconstitutional since it was based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, to which none of the nation’s founders had objected.
Nor, the dissenters claimed, was there any constitutional basis for the claim that blacks could not be citizens. At the time of the Constitution’s ratification, blacks could vote in 10 of the 13 states, which made them not only state but national citizens. (However by 1857 rights for blacks had been severely restricted in many states.)
Effects of the Decision
Slaveholders felt vindicated by the Supreme Court’s decision and many Southerners began claiming the right to bring their slaves into any territory they wished. Most Northerners were shocked and outraged, not by the fate of Dred Scott but by the notion that slavery could be extended into all U.S. territories. Northern politicians feared that if the territories allowed slavery and then became states, they would shift the balance of power in government to the South. Many abolitionists feared that the “next Dred Scott decision” would open all states to slavery.
The Democratic Party, already loosely consolidated between Northern and Southern factions, openly split over the Dred Scott decision. For the Republican Party, in which stopping the expansion of slavery was a primary goal, the Court’s decision seemed to indicate that their agenda was essentially unconstitutional. This led to open resistance to the decision, which only helped strengthen and lead the Republicans to major victories in the 1860 elections.
As for Dred Scott, a group purchased the freedom of him and his family shortly following the Court’s decision. The family lived in St. Louis where Dred Scott worked in a hotel until his death the following year.
Chief Justice Roger Taney had hoped that the Dred Scott decision would settle the bitter slavery issue once and for all, but it only made matters worse and diminished his reputation as a justice. More importantly, it helped lead the nation ever closer to civil war.
Sources
Davis, Kenneth C.: Don’t Know Much About the Civil War (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1996)
Woods Jr., Thomas E.: The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004)
Dred Scott of Missouri
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