Dred Scott  "A Man With No Rights"  CA. 1800-1858

The slave of a U.S. Army doctor from Missouri, Dred Scott accompanied his master to different army posts in the United States and the western territories. Most Northern states had laws offering freedom to slaves who entered their states accompanied by their masters, and in the Missouri Compromise, Congress had prohibited slavery in the territories north of the southern boundary of Missouri. Because he had spent two years in a free state and a free territory, Dred Scott, backed by abolitionists, sued for his freedom in 1846. In 1856, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which at this time was composed mostly of pro-Southern justices. The Chief Justice, Roger B. Taney, was was an 80-year-old Marylander who had freed his own slaves but who was still committed to the Southern way of life.

In 1857, Taney wrote the court's decision and knocked the antislavery factions on their heels. First, the court ruled that no black man, free or slave, was a U.S. citizen; therefore a black man had no right to sue in federal court and, for that matter, "had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." next, the court ruled that Congress never had the right to ban slavery in territories because the Constitution protected people from being deprived of life, liberty, or property. Slaves, like cows or goats, were property and could be taken anywhere in U.S. jurisdiction.

The South rejoiced and felt relief and vindication, for at last the "Southern opinion upon the subject of Southern slavery... is now the supreme law of the land." The abolitionists in the North were outraged. William Cullen Bryant wrote that slavery was now "a Federal institution... Hereafter, wherever our... flag floats, it is the flag of slavery." The outrage against the decision helped rather than hurt the antislavery cause and contributed to the Republican victory in the 1860 presidential election. The Supreme Court had hoped the decision would end the controversy about the extension of slavery into new territories. Instead, it just fanned the flames of abolitionism.

Fascinating Fact:  Dred Scott and his family were bought and freed after the Court's ruling. Dred died the next year.


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