Dred Scott Decision: Worst Supreme Court Ruling in US History
The Dred Scott Decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857) was the infamous ruling of the United States Supreme Court that, according to the US Constitution, Black people were not and could not be considered citizens of the United States of America and, further, that "no slave or descendant of a slave had any 'rights which the white man was bound to respect'" (Delbanco, 331).
The decision, which was intended by the Supreme Court to put the issue of slavery in the United States to rest, only increased tensions between slave and free states, contributing to the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Today, it is regarded as the worst ruling in the history of the United States Supreme Court.
The case began as a simple freedom suit filed by the slave Dred Scott (circa 1799-1858) and his wife Harriet Scott (née Robinson, circa 1820-1876) against Irene Emerson, widow of Dr. John Emerson (their owners) arguing that, since Dr. Emerson had taken the Scotts (and their two daughters) into free states, where they had taken up residence, they were free. The suit was filed in April 1846 and dragged on for eleven years until it was heard by the US Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 that the Scotts could not sue for their freedom because they were not citizens of the United States and were, therefore, not entitled to the rights and protections of US citizens.
The Scotts were soon after purchased and freed by one Taylor Blow, son of the man who had owned Dred Scott before Emerson. Dred Scott lived as a free man with his wife and children for over a year before dying of tuberculosis in November 1858.
Political Background
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 expanded the United States by 828,000 square miles (2,144,510 km²), nearly doubling its territory westward. Disputes arose almost immediately over the slavery issue in these new territories and whether they would eventually be admitted to the Union as free or slave states. Northern free states wanted to limit the spread of slavery westward, while Southern slave states opposed this policy.
In 1787, Congress had passed the Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited the spread of slavery into the Northwest Territory, but, after the Louisiana Purchase, White settlers began traveling to this region to settle, and many of them brought their slaves. In 1812, Louisiana joined the Union as a slave state, and by 1819, there were enough settlers in the Missouri Territory to qualify it for admittance to statehood. If Missouri were admitted as a slave state, however, it would upset the present balance of power in government between free and slave states.
This problem was addressed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while prohibiting slavery north of the parallel 36°30′. Any slave brought into "free state territory" could claim their freedom since, legally, slavery did not exist there.
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⇒ Dred Scott Decision: Worst Supreme Court Ruling in US History
