History
Dred Scott Decision
The Dred Scott Decision was a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 that declared African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not considered citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. The decision also invalidated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, exacerbating tensions between the North and South over the issue of slavery and contributing to the lead-up to the American Civil War.
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10 Key excerpts on "Dred Scott Decision"
eBook - PDFThe Great Heart of the Republic
St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War
- Adam Arenson(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Harvard University Press(Publisher)
N ews of the decision reached St. Louis before the end of the day. On the morning of March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney gathered the U.S. Supreme Court to deliver the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In the base-ment chambers, beneath the unfinished dome of the Capitol, Taney declared that his Court did not have the proper jurisdiction to decide the case, but then he read a lengthy majority opinion nonetheless. The result was telegraphed throughout the country all afternoon. “The act of Congress which prohibits citizens from holding property of this character north of a certain line is not warranted by the constitution, and is therefore void,” Taney announced, “and neither Dred Scott nor any one of his family were made free by their residence in Illinois.” Taney emphasized the point by recourse to history. Since the founding of the United States, the chief justice intoned, “the class of persons who had been imported as slaves [and] their descendants” were “regarded as . . . so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The case of Dred Scott and of his wife, Harriet, of their daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, was denied, and the tradition of geographical compromise on slaveholding negated. 5 The Limits of Dred Scott’s Emancipation There now appears . . . triumphant in the city of St. Louis, an emancipa-tion party to contest for supremacy in the State, which declares that agi-tation of the slavery question shall never cease until Missouri is free. —Ripley (Ohio) Bee, April 18, 1857. t h e l i m i ts of dr ed scot t’s e m a ncipat ion American slavery had been rife with contradictions long before Dred Scott, yet this case brought the balancing act of slavery into stark relief.
eBook - ePub- Ian D. Loveland(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
[3] THE Dred Scott Decision, IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY LEGAL DOCTRINES 1 Having had occasion recently to renew my acquaintance with the case of Scott v. Sandford, 2 I have become persuaded that the usual historical verdict with reference to it needs revision in three important particulars : first, as to the legal value of the pronouncement in that case of unconstitutionality with reference to the Missouri Compromise ; secondly, as to the basis of that pronouncement ; thirdly, as to the nature of the issue between Chief Justice Taney and Justice Curtis upon the question of citizenship that was raised by Dred Scott’s attempt to sue in the federal courts. 3 The main facts leading up to and attending this famous litigation may be summarized as follows : 4 Dred Scott, a slave belonging to an army officer named Emerson, was taken by his master from the home state, Missouri, first into the free state of Illinois and thence into that portion of the national territory from which, by the eighth section of the Missouri Compromise, slavery was “forever” excluded. Here master and slave remained two years before returning to Missouri, the latter in the meantime having married with his master’s consent. In 1852 Dred sued his master for freedom in one of the lower state courts and won the action, but upon appeal the decision was reversed by the supreme court of the state, upon the ground that Dred’s status at home was fixed by state law regardless of what it was abroad—a decision which plainly ran counter to the whole trend of decision by the same court for the previous generation. Thereupon the case was remanded to the inferior court for retrial but Dred, having in the meantime upon the death of Emerson passed by bequest to Sandford, a citizen of New York, now decided to bring a totally new action in the United States circuit court for the Missouri district, under section 11 of the Act of 1789
eBook - PDF- Brian McGinty(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Harvard University Press(Publisher)
Taney had won the argument—and the Dred Scott case—and Benjamin Curtis had lost his seat on the highest court in the United States. Lincoln and the Court 56 It is not surprising that public reaction to the Dred Scott Decision divided largely (although not entirely) along sectional lines. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune led the Northern antislavery voices, condemning the decision as “entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room.” 26 The New York Indepen-dent described it as a “horrible hand-book of tyranny” that reduced black men to “an ordinary article of merchandise.” 27 And the Chicago Tribune branded it “one of those legal monstrosities which the Judicial tools of tyrants or the judicial confederates of parties have insanely perpetrated against right and justice.” 28 But in the South, the Richmond Enquirer praised the decision as “definitive” and “authentic,” and said that, by it, “the nation has achieved a tri-umph, sectionalism has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned.” 29 The New Orleans Daily Picayune congratulated the Supreme Court for dealing “a heavy blow to Black Republicanism and its allies.” 30 And the Charleston Mercury said that the decision demonstrated that “in its most ex-treme demand the South contends only for its rights under the Constitution.” 31 Other voices saw ominous signs in the decision. The New York Times feared that the doctrine it promulgated would “sink deep into the public heart, and germinate there as the seed of discontent and contest and disaster hereaf-ter.” 32 And the Charleston Mercury doubted that the decision would settle the deep differences that still separated the North and the South. On the contrary, the Mercury predicted that it would accelerate “the final conflict between Slav-ery and Abolitionism.” “The Abolitionists are not at all abashed or dismayed,” the paper declared.
eBook - ePub- Robert P. George, Robert George(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
CHAPTER THREEDred Scott v. Sandford and Its LegacyCASS R. SUNSTEIN[O]pinions were so various and at first so crude that it was necessary they should be long debated before any uniform system of opinion could be formed. Meantime the minds of the members were changing, and much was to be gained by a yielding and accommodating spirit.… [N]o man felt himself obliged to retain his opinion any longer than he was satisfied of their propriety and truth, and was open to the force of argument.(James Madison)The spirit of liberty [is that spirit which] is not too sure that it is right.(Learned Hand)MY TOPICS IN this chapter are the myths that the Dred Scott case created, the myths that Americans have created about it, and the true lessons of the case for three of the great constitutional issues of the current era: affirmative action, homosexuality, and the right to die.THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF DRED SCOTTThe Dred Scott case was probably the most important case in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States. Indeed, it was probably the most important constitutional case in the history of any nation and any court. But most of us have little if any sense of what it means or was even about. Even within the legal culture, the case is taught infrequently in constitutional law courses; outside of the legal culture, the case is pretty well forgotten, or at most a footnote in discussions of the Civil War.We should note right at the outset some of the many remarkable facts about the case.• Dred Scott was the first Supreme Court case since Marbury v. Madison invalidating a federal law. Since Marbury created judicial review in the context of a denial of jurisdiction, Dred Scott might plausibly be said to be the first real exercise of the power of judicial review.• Dred Scott was
eBook - ePubThe Doctrine of Judicial Review
Its Legal and Historical Basis and Other Essays
- Edward S. Corwin(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
4 The Dred Scott Decision 1 The purpose of the following study is to consider the Dred Scott Decision 2 in the light of legal doctrine contemporary with it, in the view particularly of reassessing the pronouncement therein of unconstitutionality upon the Missouri Compromise. 3 I The main facts leading up to and attending this famous case may be summarized as follows: 4 Dred, a slave belonging to an army officer named Emerson, was taken by his master from the home State, Missouri, first into the free State of Illinois and thence into that portion of the national territory in which, by the eighth section of the Missouri Compromise, slavery had been “forever prohibited.” Here master and slave remained two years before returning to Missouri, the latter in the meantime marrying with his master’s consent. In 1852 Dred sued his master for freedom in one of the lower State courts and won the action, but upon appeal the decision was reversed by the supreme court of the State, upon the ground that appellee’s status at home was fixed by State law regardless of what it had been abroad—a decision which plainly ran counter to the whole trend of decision by the same court for the previous generation. Thereupon the case was remanded to the inferior court for retrial, but Dred, having in the meantime become the property of one Sanford, a citizen of New York, now decided to bring a totally new action in the United States circuit court for the Missouri district, under section 11 of the Act of 1789. In order to bring this action Dred had of course to aver his citizenship of Missouri, which averment was traversed by his adversary in what is known as a plea in abatement, denying the jurisdiction of the court upon the ground that plaintiff was the descendant of African slaves and had been born in slavery
eBook - ePubAmerican History through Its Greatest Speeches
A Documentary History of the United States [3 volumes]
- Jolyon P. Girard, Darryl Mace, Courtney Michelle Smith, Jolyon P. Girard, Darryl Mace, Courtney Michelle Smith(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- ABC-CLIO(Publisher)
Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against the defendant in the State court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence upon which he relies in the case before the court. The case was carried before the Supreme Court of the State, was fully argued there, and that court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were entitled to freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant, and reversed the judgment of the inferior State court, which had given a different decision. If the plaintiff supposed that this judgment of the Supreme Court of the State was erroneous, and that this court had jurisdiction to revise and reverse it, the only mode by which he could legally bring it before this court was by writ of error directed to the Supreme Court of the State, requiring it to transmit the record to this court. If this had been done, it is too plain for argument that the writ must have been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court. The case of Strader and others v. Graham is directly in point, and, indeed, independent of any decision, the language of the 25th section of the act of 1789 is too clear and precise to admit of controversy. . . . Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution, and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.Source: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).3. Frederick Douglass, “Speech on the Dred Scott Case” (1857)
In this speech, delivered in May 1857, Frederick Douglass, the most prominent black abolitionist of his day, draws upon the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and Enlightenment thinking to decry the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In the majority opinion of this Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice Roger Taney argued that the complainant Dred Scott was still a slave even though he had lived a significant portion of his life as a slave in territories that did not sanction slavery. However, Chief Justice Taney did not stop there; rather, he added, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and any legislation that restricted the spread of slavery, were unconstitutional. Moreover, Taney argued that whites did not have to respect the rights of blacks.Frederick Douglass attacked Chief Justice Taney’s decision by noting that the abolitionist cause had endured in the face of all opposition. The Dred Scott ruling, for Douglass, was simply another obstacle to overcome. He was, however, confident in his cause. Douglass pointed to the Declaration of Independence, and the claims of natural rights contained within, as proof that America would eventually overthrow the institution of slavery. He proclaimed that God’s law superseded any law or any ruling laid out by man.
eBook - ePubAmerican Eloquence, Volume 3
Studies In American Political History (1897)
- Alexander Johnston, James Albert Woodburn, (Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
Sir, follow out the illustration which the Senator from Vermont himself has given; take his very case of the Delaware owner of a horse riding him across the line into Pennsylvania. The Senator says: "Now, you see that slaves are not property like other property; if slaves were property like other property, why have you this special clause in your Constitution to protect a slave? You have no clause to protect the horse, because horses are recognized as property everywhere." Mr. President, the same fallacy lurks at the bottom of this argument, as of all the rest. Let Pennsylvania exercise her undoubted jurisdiction over persons and things within her own boundary; let her do as she has a perfect right to do—declare that hereafter, within the State of Pennsylvania, there shall be no property in horses, and that no man shall maintain a suit in her courts for the recovery of property in a horse; and where will your horse-owner be then? Just where the English poet is now; just where the slaveholder and the inventor would be if the Constitution, foreseeing a difference of opinion in relation to rights in these subject-matters, had not provided the remedy in relation to such property as might easily be plundered. Slaves, if you please, are not property like other property in this: that you can easily rob us of them; but as to the right in them, that man has to overthrow the whole history of the world, he has to overthrow every treatise on jurisprudence, he has to ignore the common sentiment of mankind, he has to repudiate the authority of all that is considered sacred with man, ere he can reach the conclusion that the person who owns a slave, in a country where slavery has been established for ages, has no other property in that slave than the mere title which is given by the statute law of the land where it is found. * * *
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
OF ILLINOIS. (BORN 1809, DIED 1865.)
ON THE Dred Scott Decision, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JUNE 26, 1857.And now as to the Dred Scott Decision. That decision declares two propositions—first, that a negro cannot sue in the United States courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided court—dividing differently on the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he could on Taney.He denounces all who question the correctness of that decision, as offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his master over him?Judicial decisions have two uses,—first, to absolutely determine the case decided; and secondly, to indicate to the public how other similar cases will be decided when they arise. For the latter use they are called "precedents" and "authorities."We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in obedience to, and respect for, the judicial department of government. We think its decisions on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments to the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott Decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to overrule this. We offer no resistance to it.Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents according to circumstances. That this should be so accords both with common sense and the customary understanding of the legal profession.
eBook - PDFForeshadows of the Law
Supreme Court Dissents and Constitutional Development
- Bloomsbury Publishing(Author)
- 1992(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
Chapter 2 IMAGES OF A NEW UNION The Dred Scott Decision by itself did not cause the union's dissolution and consequent civil war. Nor is it even certain how much of the Republican Party's expanding popularity during the late 1850s was attributable to the Dred Scott ruling. The Republicans' explosive growth in the several years before the nation's unraveling reflected the consolidation or transfer of political allegiance pursuant to disintegration of or alienation from other parties. Although impossible to prove Charles Warren's thesis that the Dred Scott Decision "elected Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency," it is clear that Lincoln's victory prompted secession. As Don Fehrenbacher has sug- gested, the ruling at least "was a conspicuous and perhaps an integral part of configuration of events and conditions that did produce enough changes of allegiance to make a political revolution and enough intensity of feeling to make that revolution violent." Limits of Judicial Power The notion that the Supreme Court somehow could have successfully resolved the slavery controversy was grounded more in political despera- tion than realism. Although never having reckoned with slavery in its broadest sense, the Court had established enough of a record to suggest that it was an unlikely source for resolving or ameliorating the nation's condition. The case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, for instance, concerned a discrete, albeit significant aspect of the slavery issue. The decision was criticized in the North, where the ruling enhanced sensitivity with respect to the entire nation's involvement in slavery. Even though vindicating the 26 Foreshadows of the Law recovery rights of slave owners, the Court's determination, that slavery could exist only by virtue of positive local law and was entitled to no recognition in another state unless extended by principles of comity, es- tablished an exclusive federal responsibility on fugitive questions that an- tagonized Southern interests.
eBook - PDFCivic Ideals
Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History
- Rogers M. Smith(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
In light of its inadequacy, Curtis contended, Scott should be given the benefit of the doubt. 91 Curtis's opinion was strong on the broad questions of whether free blacks could anywhere be U.S. citizens and whether Congress could ban slavery in the territories, but his general views on citizenship really implied that Dred Scott was not one. By refusing Congress the power to naturalize native-born blacks, and by agreeing with Taney that there might be blacks who were treated as state citizens in their state of residence but who were not citizens within the meaning of the Constitution because they were not born citizens, Curtis left not only Scott but most of the nation's blacks ineligible for U.S. citizenship. McLean implied a more inclusive approach but did not confront the legal issues his assertions raised. Thus the dissents offered little hope that Taney's Jacksonian Democratic view of citizenship, particularly black citizenship, could be rebutted via judicial adoption of the views that lost in Dred Scott. New statutory and constitutional legislation would be required for more nationalistic, more inclusive, and more egalitarian conceptions of citizenship to become American law. 92 But making those changes would be enormously difficult: Lincoln made opposition to the principles of Dred Scott as well as popular sovereignty over slavery in the territories the cen-terpiece of his Senate campaign against Douglas, and he barely won the popular vote, while losing in the legislature. If that was the result in the free state of Illi-nois, it is likely that, at least in the absence of blacks and women voting, a national poll would have shown that a majority of Americans approved of the Dred Scott Decision and its racist vision of American citizenship. The New Birth of Freedom Even so, after Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, Southern states began to se-cede, concluding that hostile antislavery forces had at last captured the national government.
eBook - ePubThe Limits of Judicial Power
The Supreme Court in American Politics
- William Lasser(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- The University of North Carolina Press(Publisher)
104 He deliberately left unclear what he meant by the phrase “when fully settled,” though it was certain that the Court’s decision did not end the matter.Lincoln was also ambiguous in his debates with Douglas, preferring to put his opponent on the defensive rather than clarify his own position. Early in the summer of 1858, however, he had sketched out his views on the binding authority of Supreme Court decisions. Lincoln contended that a Court decision resolves the immediate question before the Court, and also indicates “that when a question comes up upon another person it will be so decided again, unless the court decides in another way”; unless, that is, “the court overrules its decision.”105 Then, citing Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Bank of the United States recharter, Lincoln argued that “the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern a coordinate branch of the government.”106 Therefore, he concluded, Republicans “do not propose to be bound by” the Dred Scott decision “as a political rule.”107 The Court’s decision clearly had to be accepted as regards Dred Scott himself, but Republicans could nevertheless work for a reversal.Lincoln’s position was full of holes, the largest of which was his absurdly narrow view of precedent. He struggled with this problem as late as his 1861 inaugural address, trying to reconcile his condemnation of the Dred Scott decision with his respect for judicial power. He concluded that if the policy of the nation on vital questions is to be “irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made,” then “the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having … practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.” In the next sentence, however, Lincoln showed the essential Republican ambiguity toward the Court: “Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the court, or the judges.”108
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