Paul Oliver, New Bedford. Mass. for his question:
WHAT WAS THE DRED SCOTT DECISION?
An important ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States on the issue of slavery was called the Dred Scott Decision. The decision, made in 1857, declared that no Negro free or slave could claim United States Citizenship. It also ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the United States territories.
The ruling aroused angry resentment in the North and led the nation a step closer to civil war. It also influenced the introduction and passage of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution after the Civil War. The war lasted from 1861 until 1865.
This important amendment, adopted in 1868, extended citizenship to former slaves and gave them full civil rights.
Dred Scott was the name of a slave owned by a U.S. Army surgeon named John Emerson. They lived in Missouri, a state that permitted slavery.
In 1834. Scott went with Emerson to live in Illinois, which prohibited slavery. They later lived in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was also forbidden.
In 1838, Scott returned to Missouri with Emerson. Emerson died there in 1843, and three years later Scott sued the surgeon's widow for his freedom.
Scott based his suit on the argument that his former residence in a free state and a free territory made him a free man. A state circuit court ruled in Scott's favor, but the Missouri Supreme Court later reversed the decision.
Meanwhile. Scott had become the legally regarded property of a man from New York. Scott's lawyers were able to transfer the case from Missouri to a federal court, and this court also ruled against Scott. Scott's lawyers then took the case to the Supreme Court.
By a majority of seven to two, the Supreme Court ruled that Scott could not bring a suit in a federal court because, the majority ruled, Negroes were not citizens of the United States.
The court could have simply dismissed the case after ruling on Scott's citizenship. But there was a growing national desire for a ruling on the constitutionality of such laws as the Missouri Compromise. One provision in the Missouri Compromise ruled that slavery was forbidden in the Wisconsin Territory.
Because of the growing national desire for a ruling, the court discussed this issue as part of its decision in the Dred Scott case. By a smaller majority, it ruled that the Missouri Compromise, which had been repealed in 1854, was unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney spoke with the majority. Taney argued that because slaves were property, Congress could not forbid slavery in the territories without violating a slave owner's constitutional right to own property.
Dred Scott himself was sold shortly afterward. His new owner gave him his freedom two months after the Supreme Court decision.
Taney was one of the great chief justices of the United States, but the merit of his other work is clouded by his decision in the Dred Scott case. He had also been U.S. attorney general under President Andrew Jackson.