Dred Scott Case

Social Issues, 1857

The background of the Dred Scott decision, one of the Supreme Court’s most controversial pronouncements, is complex.

Dred Scott, a slave, had been purchased by army surgeon John Emerson, a citizen of Missouri. Scott and his master had spent time in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was prohibited.

After Emerson’s death in 1846, Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that his journey to free soil had made him free. He lost this case in the state courts. Scott then ended up in the possession of John Sanford, a New York abolitionist, who assisted in taking his case to the federal courts since the matter now involved a dispute between the residents of different states. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court where a decision was reached in 1857.

The Supreme Court, like the country itself, was split along sectional lines. One justice maintained that the matter belonged back in the state courts. Liberal justices argued that Scott should be freed under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. Conservative justices wanted to deny freedom to Scott and rule the Compromise unconstitutional.

In the end the Court was unable to reach a single decision, but the positions taken by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a former slaveowner, prevailed. He found that:

• Dred Scott had no standing in the court system because blacks, regardless of whether they were free or slave, were not and could not be citizens.
• A slave was the property of the slaveowner and that temporary residence north of the Missouri Compromise’s 36˚30’ line did not bestow freedom.
• Congress, under the Fifth Amendment, lacked the authority to deprive citizens of their property, a ruling that served to wipe out the slavery provisions of the Missouri Compromise.

The Democrats were irreparably split into Northern and Southern factions. Stephen A. Douglas opposed the decision because it voided his solution of popular sovereignty.

On the other hand, President James Buchanan greeted the decision favorably in hopes that that the slavery issue could be put to rest. Critics of the president charged that he had actually conspired to shape the Court’s response.