By cadet r. hun
Dred scott decision
• In 1857, the U.S. Supreme
Court handed down a
landmark decision in Dred
Scott v. Sanford, a
decision that galvanized
a budding Republican
Party, polarized a young
nation, and set the stage
for the Civil War. For
black Americans, the
decision radically
undermined their legal
rights and their faith
that God was leading the
country toward a true
interpretation of
American democracy.
His birth
Born into slavery in 1799,
Scott was illiterate and
nearly penniless when he and
his wife Harriet first brought
their case to the St. Louis
Circuit Court in 1846. Like his
parents, Scott had been the
property of Peter Blow, a
prominent Virginian. Scott
moved from Virginia to Missouri
with the Blow family. There he
was sold to a military
surgeon, Dr. John Emerson, in
1830.
What he did
For the next twelve
years, Scott
traveled the mid-
west with Dr.
Emerson, moving
between Missouri,
Illinois, and the
Wisconsin Territory.
During that time,
Dred Scott, his wife
Harriet, and
daughters Lizzie and
Eliza, lived enslaved
in a land that
outlawed slavery.
Decisions made
• The opinion handed
down on March 6, 1857,
by Chief Justice Roger
Taney was sweeping in
its pro-slavery
findings. Seven of the
nine justices found
that Dred Scott should
remain enslaved.
Taney's opinion argued
that Scott, as an
enslaved person, was
not a citizen and
thereby had no
grounds to bring suit
in federal court.
• As he put it, blacks
"had no rights which
the white man was
bound to respect; and
that the Negro might
justly and lawfully
be reduced to
slavery for his
benefit. He was
bought and sold and
treated as an
ordinary article of
merchandise and
traffic, whenever
profit could be made
by it."
How it ended up
In the end, Dred Scott and his
family did win their freedom.
Emerson's widow remarried
to a northerner, Calvin
Chaffee, who was staunchly
anti-slavery. In deference to
her new husband's wishes,
Mrs. Emerson sold the Scotts
to the Blow family, their
original masters. The Blow
family had supported Scott
both emotionally and
financially throughout the
lengthy ordeal, and in May
1857 they gave Scott and his
family their freedom.
A scant sixteen
months later, Dred
Scott died of
tuberculosis. His
epitaph reads: "Dred
Scott: Subject of the
decision of the
Supreme Court of the
United States in 1857
which denied
citizenship to the
Negro, voided the
Missouri Compromise,
became one of the
events that resulted
in Civil War."
His death
The war, of course, is
another story, but the Dred
Scott story ends on a happier
note. The Widow Emerson
decided to turn Dred, Harriet
and their daughters back
over to their original
owners, the Blow family,
soon after the Supreme
Court ruling. The Blows then
set them free.
Unfortunately, Dred died 16
months later of
tuberculosis, but his wife and
daughters lived through the
Civil War that their court
case partially inspired
The end
of