Talk:Dred Scott v. Sandford

Vandalism

I just restored the case section, but there are still references to "Chris Rules" scattered throughout. Can somebody with more WikiFu than I please fix these (revert the idiots)? 69.162.59.13 19:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not that person, but I inadvertently deleted some data at the bottom. I was copying some text and flat out screwed up. I am sorry for any problem this might have caused.

Not to worry, that's why Wikipedia backs up every editing iteration Gautam ^Discuss 19:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Dred Scott and judicial activism

Unless I'm wrong, Bush was actually wrong about the case being an example of judicial activism. According to section 2, clause 3 of the Constitution:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

While there is no mention of the actual word "slavery," there is no doubt who those "other persons" who get three fifths of a vote are. If that's true, that deserves some mention.--B5d 18:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

The last three paragraphs of "Judicial Appointments" are illogical (if not POV-based) and should probably be revised or removed -- especially the last sentence, which claims that because the justices in the Dred Scott case were not distinctly reinterpreting the Constitution as it stood at that time, slavery is thus a "powerful argument for judicial activism." The conclusion doesn't follow at all. Judicial activism in this case would have come down for slavery, not against it; and it wasn't by any means judicial activism that ended U.S. slavery; it was the 1865 amendment.

Also, the first sentence stating that the "implied larger point, that the constitution disallows slavery in general, is false" is itself a mischaracterization. The Constitution at that time neither allowed nor disallowed slavery, unless noting the existence of slavery can be considered expressly permitting it. Counting people by three-fifths, a compromise between slave and free states, should not be construed as Constitutional support of slavery (and enough people thought that it should be disallowed that a civil war was fought and won over the point). Since slavery is not explicitly allowed, therefore, an observer who says "The Constitution does not allow slavery, except perhaps in somebody's personal opinion," has not spoken a falsehood, as this sentence says they have.

At any rate, the comparison with Roe v. Wade is not imprecise at all on socio-cultural grounds, since the questions of slavery then and abortion now are both morally controversial and divisive ones that weren't definitely explained by the original Constitution. (Bravo-Alpha 08:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC))

Use of word "negroes"

I'm not sure I agree with the following phrasing: "No Negroes, not even free Negroes, could ever become citizens of the United States." It seems to me to be correct to use non-preferred terms (such as Negro) in direct quotations, but not outside. Novalis 08:15, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, a direct quote would be much better. I did a quick browse through the verdict, and I can confirm that this is definitely an accurate statement, but I did not find a suitable short sentence. Perhaps you can have a look. Sander123 14:26, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sanford or Sandford?

Is it Sanford or Sandford? (see second paragraph) -- Stw 23:39, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good question. On the website of the supreme court, they refer to it as: "Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857)"

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/casefinder/casefinder_1790-1862.html

User:sander123 8 march 2004

Officially, the case is definitely "Scott v. Sandford," though the respondent was John Sanford. There was a clerical error. I don't think we should correct the error: firstly, the courts never bothered to do so, and secondly, "Sandford" is the spelling that is properly used in legal documents, etc. -- Emsworth 15:40, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

Leave it "Sandford." There was indeed a clerical error, but in legal writing it will always be cited with the spelling "Sandford." Making a note of this interesting trivial aspect of the case in the article would likely be wise.

---

By the way, is it really necessary to cite so extensively from the opinions? Woudn't it be better to have a discussion of its contents, with a few short well chosen cites? User:sander123 8 march 2004

Contemporary reference

I see there is an external link available, but I think it would be beneficial to include a paragraph or two explaining how the Dred Scott Case is currently being used by Pro-Life advocates, considering the President went so far as to mention Dred Scott during one of the debates. --Feitclub 16:32, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Personal outcome for Dred Scott

Reading the article as a disinterested and uninformed observer, the eventual outcome for Dred Scott is left as a loose end.

Various websites located by a Google search on Dredd Scott turned up these details:-

"Peter Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's sons purchased Scott and his wife and set them free. Dred Scott died nine months later."

"Mrs. Emerson remarries. Since her new husband opposes slavery, she returns Dred Scott and his family to the Blow family. The Blows give the Scotts their freedom."

NPOV is hard to obtain here. I presume from the two quotes that Mrs Emerson sold her interest in the Scott family to the Blow family, who manumitted them. Unclear if this was an act of generosity on the part of Emerson, or simple disposal of an unwanted asset. Two children were also mentioned. Did the Scott's manumission extend to them as well? Any further background to clarify this?

Shokaman

Kansas-Nebraska Act?

In this article, the Kansas Nebraska Act is included as one of the consequences of the decision. I don't think it should be included under consequences because that could be very confusing, since it did happen before all of this.

jazmine

Judicial appointments

Some comments about the section titled "Judicial Appointments":

The first paragraph in that section mentions two similarities, a "specific" similarity and a "general" similarity, between Dred Scott v. Sandford and Roe v. Wade. Another "specific" similarity, not mentioned, is that both decisions relied on the doctrine of substantive due process. SDP according to conservative legal scholars represents an erroneously broad interpretation of the due process clauses in the 5th and 14th Amendments.

And, another "general" similarity, not mentioned, is that in both decisions, the Supreme Court aimed to settle a national controversy (slavery in Dred Scott, abortion in Roe), with the unintended result that the debate became even more contentious--culminating in the Civil War after Dred Scott and the politicization of federal judicial appointments after Roe.

About the second paragraph: The analogy between Dred Scott and Roe was not "esoteric", as this paragraph claims, before the 2nd presidential debate of 2004. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Penn. v. Casey (1992), which upheld Roe, Justice Scalia made this comparison:

>> ...Dred Scott...rested upon the concept of "substantive due process" that the Court praises and employs today. Indeed, Dred Scott was very possibly the first application of substantive due process in the Supreme Court, the original precedent for...Roe v. Wade.<<

Justice Scalia goes on to compare the false expectation by President Buchanan that the Dred Scott decision would settle the issue of slavery, with the false hope of the Roe court that that decision would settle the issue of abortion.

I would move to remove the Judicial Appointments section from the article entirely. The reasoning being that if does not speak about the Dred Scott case itself, but rather how this case is affecting a different issue, namly the current abortion debate. Secondly, the section is growing to an unwieldy size for such a sub point to the entry. Third, I have grave concerns about maintaining a NPOV on the subject. My research shows that this connection is greatly used by the pro-life crowd and virtually ignored by the pro-choice crowd. After several hours of searching for references from the pro-choice crowd, I have located some, but it is clear that this is a favorite allegory of one side of the debate and clearly not paid attention to by the other. Given the massive discrepancy, maintaining a NPOV is difficult.

However, I have tried. I've edited the pro-life argument, changing the wording from "unjustly removed constitutional protections" to "asserted the lack of constitutional protections" and changed "illegitimate meddling" to "unnecessary interferance" in a effort to bring these arguments closer to a NPOV. I've also, instead of removing the pro-life arguments, added pro-choice viewpoints and cited references for those viewpoints into the section.

I believe that this whole section should be simply removed from the article and moved into it's own article, if kept at all. But failing that, we should strive to present both sides of the debate in as close to a NPOV as possible. --Don Sowell 23:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Players and the Arguments section

The chronology is off . . . 64.12.117.11 15:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Notice About the Free States in Intro

Scott was taken to Illinois and Wisconsin not Illinois and Indiana — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hindude (talk • contribs) 20:12, July 7, 2006 (UTC)

• Do you have a citation for that? Wikibofh_(talk) 20:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa are correct, according to Wilentz. The case, however, was based only on the residence in Illinois and Wisconsin. DMorpheus 14:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

POV in opening pargraph

This unsourced sentence in the opening reeks of unsubstantiated POV (and is very naive to say it caused the Civil War). It compromises the whole article. Since this is a well written article, it should not be sabotaged so early on with a sentence that is flame bait.

It is considered by many to have been a key cause of the American Civil War, and of the later ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, leading to the abolition of slavery and establishment of civil rights for freed slaves.

Americasroof 11:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Editing

I'm in the middle of doing some serious editing on the article. There are some major problems, including the fact that the first sentence as it now stands simply isn't true (in fact, the fugitive slave laws which were in effect were the exact opposite of what the first sentence suggests was the law), and that the organization is a mess compared to other Supreme Court Case articles.-Polotet 03:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I will be interested to see what you post. I won't get in a revert war while you sort it out. The important facts I want to convey is the context/motivation (e.g., Bleeding Kansas) and avoiding the leap that it caused the American Civil War and resulted in a constitutional ammendment freeing of slaves. As mentioned in my previous comments, I'm amazed this somehow worked its way into featured article with those significant POV issues. Growing up in Missouri the textbook was always that it reversed the Missouri Compromise. It's more complex than that and I look forward to seeing your changes. The opening sentence though should be in English rather than Legalese. Americasroof 03:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I've done the best I can to improve the accuracy and the flow of the article, though it certainly still isn't perfect. I've tried to bring the intro more in line with other well-written Supreme Court Case articles. I'd be happy to discuss any specific changes I made here. Thanks!-Polotet 04:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice job! I don't think I will tinker significantly anymore with this. I've been writing a lot about the Missouri in the Civil War and the nuance I wanted to make sure got caught was that the Dred Scott decision occurred at a time when a shooting war between Missouri and Kansas had in fact started in Bleeding Kansas. Missouri was hoping that it could avoid war by maintaining the status quo. The decision (which even the Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice dissented) marked judicial activism to quiet the Bleeding Kansas conflict. It of course had other impacts. Anyway nice job and in further rewrites I would hope that motivations for the judicial activism are described. Americasroof 11:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Article Title vs. Header

While I understand why the title of the article and the header (or whatever you call the first instance of its name that appears in bold at the beginning of the article) are different, I'm not sure that it's the right way to go about things. The case should probably always be referred to as it appears in official records, with Sandford, and an explanatory note can be attached to the first instance in the article where one of the members of the Sanford family is referred to.-Polotet 04:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your approach. The Supreme Court case finder lists the case as Dred Scott v. Sandford [1] and so the infobox and beginning references should agree with that. --MZMcBride 23:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Antislavery verdict

Perhaps if the Supreme Court ruled, in 1857, that Dred Scott, since he lived in a free territory, was free, that slaves were real human beings and not property (all property is made of metal), and that Congress could prohibit slavey in the territories (Congress can make all necessary and proper laws), how would the nation have reacted?

An interesting question, but I have to take issue with "all property is made of metal." Might want to do some fact-checking on that. Anyway, it's not clear whether this would have prevented or otherwise altered the War or not... -- 192.154.63.19 14:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Power over territories

A quick note to explain the edit I'm about to make. The article says that the Dred Scott decision ruled "that Congress had no authority to create and administer territories," and that "territories [were] unconstitutional." I do not think this is right. The decision expressly says that Congress can acquire lands and organize territorial governments over those lands. 60 U.S. 393, 448-49. However, the court said that there are limits on that power, one of which is that Congress may not deprive people of their property, including slaves. Id. at 450-52. So I am editing the article accordingly. --Theleek 19:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Slavery in the Constitution

What might be missing in this discussion, and the article itself, is mention of the primary references in the Constitution to slavery. In his comment about "judicial activism" discussed above, Bush was either stupid enough – or was hoping we were stupid enough – to believe there is nothing about slavery in the constitution. That is what my kids were taught as school, and they were given expurgated copies of the Constitution to prove it. Of course, if you do a word search, there isn't. But in reality, here they are. (Their effects are all now nullified by subsequent amendments.)

Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 (the "three-fifths clause"), which gave states representation in Congress based on their free population and 60 percent of their slaves:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

"All other persons" refers to slaves.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 (the "migration and importation" or "slave trade" clause) prohibited Congress from ending the African slave trade before 1808:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

"The importation of persons" refers to the slave trade. Although the international slave trade was banned in 1808, the ban was only half-heartedly enforced and a thriving interstate slave trade remained until the 1860s.

The Supreme Court in the Scott case wrote:

Slavery is emphatically a State institution. In the ninth section of the first article of the Constitution, it is provided 'that the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.'

In the Convention, it was proposed by a committee of eleven to limit the importation of slaves to the year 1800, when Mr. Pinckney moved to extend the time to the year 1808. This motion was carried-New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, South carolina, and Georgia, voting in the affirmative; and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, in the negative. In opposition to the motion, Mr. Madison said: 'Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves; so long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution.' ( Madison Papers.)

The provision in regard to the slave trade shows clearly that Congress considered slavery a State institution, to be continued and regulated by its individual sovereignty; and to conciliate that interest, the slave trade was continued twenty years, not as a general measure, but for the 'benefit of such States as shall think proper to encourage it.'

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 ("fugitives from labor" or "runaway slaves" clause) provided for the return of runaway slaves, irrespective of which state they were captured in, slave or free:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

The Scott decision said:

The only connection which the Federal Government holds with slaves in a State, arises from that provision of the Constitution which declares that 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

This being a fundamental law of the Federal Government, it rests mainly for its execution, as has been held, on the judicial power of the Union; and so far as the rendition of fugitives from labor has become a subject of judicial action, the Federal obligation has been faithfully discharged.

In the formation of the Federal Constitution, care was taken to confer no power on the Federal Government to interfere with this institution in the States. In the provision respecting the slave trade, in fixing the ratio of representation, and providing for the reclamation of fugitives from labor, slaves were referred to as persons, and in no other respect are they considered in the Constitution.

Article V (amendment provisions) protected the other slave provisions of the constitution from amendment.:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

The Scott decision went on at some length. I've tried to address just those issues where the constitution clearly acknowledged, and approved of, slavery. - Kjb 04:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This is my first time to do anything but read Wikipedia, so I'll just try adding a comment (I hope in the right spot???). I think there's a major error in this great article. Specifiicaly, the page states that the court found that people of African descent could not become citizens. I don't think that was the case. I know the Columbia encyclopedia says otherwise at http://www.bartleby.com/65/dr/DredScot.html Will someone who is more expert with Wikipedia and who would know what source to cite confirm and fix this. I'll watch and get a little smarter, so I can help more directly in the future. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JimThompsonSr (talk • contribs) 21:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome! I'll check it out over the next few days. Phyesalis 06:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

NPOV and Historical impact assessment

This section has some issues. There is one sentence and it's not sourced. The title of the section implies that one man's article/book constitutes an historical impact assessment. I'm thinking hia is a fairly technical term to apply to what may or may not be some justice's off-hand comment. The section should be expanded to contain some context and some good citations and then renamed, or the single unreferenced statement should be deleted. Any thoughts? Phyesalis 06:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)