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Dred Scott

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This article is about the slave. For other uses, see Dred Scott (disambiguation).
Dred Scott

Dred Scott (c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was a slave who sued unsuccessfully for his freedom in the famous Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1856. His case was based on the fact that he and his wife Harriet were slaves, but had lived in states and territories where slavery was illegal, including Illinois and Wisconsin, which was then part of the Louisiana Purchase. The court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and that Scott could not therefore bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's sojourn outside of Missouri did not affect his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, since reaching that result would deprive Scott's owner of his property.

Overview

The case raised the issue of a slave's freedom when he was in a free state. Congress had not asserted whether slaves were free once they stepped foot on Northern soil. The ruling arguably violated the Missouri Compromise because, based on the court's logic, a white slave owner could purchase slaves in a slave state and then bring his slaves to a state where slavery was illegal without losing rights to the slaves. This factor upset the Northern Republicans and further split Northern and Southern relations.

Scott traveled with his master Dr. John Emerson, who was in the army and often transferred. Scott's extended stay with his master in Illinois, a free state, gave him the legal standing to make a claim for freedom, as did his extended stay at Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was also prohibited. But Scott never made the claim while living in the free lands—perhaps because he was unaware of his rights at the time, or fearful of possible repercussions. After two years, the army transferred Emerson to the South: first to St. Louis, Missouri, then to Louisiana. In just over a year, the recently married Emerson summoned his slave couple. Instead of staying in the free territory of Wisconsin, or going to the free state of Illinois, the two traveled more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km), apparently unaccompanied, down the Mississippi River to meet their master. Only after Emerson's death in 1843, after Emerson's widow hired Scott out to an army captain, did Scott seek freedom for himself and his wife. First he offered to buy his freedom from Emerson's widow, Irene Emerson — then living in St. Louis — for $300. The offer was refused, leaving Scott to seek freedom through the courts.

Life of Dred Scott

Dred Scott was born in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1799 as property of the Peter Blow family (Congressman and statesman Henry Taylor Blow was the son of Peter). Dred Scott and the Blow family moved in 1830 to St. Louis, Missouri, where, because of financial problems, the Blow family sold Scott to Dr. John Emerson, a doctor for the United States Army. Emerson traveled extensively in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territories, where the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. During those travels with Emerson, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, and Emerson met and married Irene Sanford.[1] The Scotts and the Emersons returned to Missouri in 1842. John Emerson died in 1843. John F. A. Sanford, brother of the widow Irene Sanford Emerson, became executor of the Emerson estate.

Scott filed suit to obtain his freedom in 1846 and went to trial in 1847 in a state courthouse in St. Louis. The Blow family financed his legal wranglings. Scott lost the first trial, but the presiding judge granted a second trial because hearsay evidence had been introduced. Three years later, in 1850, a jury decided that Scott and his wife should be freed under the Missouri doctrine of "once free, always free." The widow, Irene Sanford Emerson, appealed. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, saying, "Times now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made." The Scotts were returned to their masters as chattel once more.

With the aid of new lawyers (including Montgomery Blair), the Scotts sued again in federal court. They lost and appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion. It consisted of the following points:

  • Any person descended from black Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the United States, according to the U.S. Constitution.
  • The Ordinance of 1787 could not confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory to Black people.
  • The provisions of the Act of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise, were voided as a legislative act because the act exceeded the powers of Congress, insofar as it attempted to exclude slavery and impart freedom and citizenship to Black people in the northern part of the Louisiana cession.[2]

In effect, the Court ruled that slaves had no claim to freedom; they were property and not citizens; they could not bring suit in federal court; and because slaves were private property, the federal government could not revoke a white slave owner's right to own a slave based on where he lived, thus nullifying the essence of the Missouri Compromise. Chief Justice Taney, speaking for the majority, also ruled that Scott was a slave, an object of private property, and therefore subject to the Fifth Amendment prohibition against taking property from its owner "without due process."

Gravesite

After the ruling, with Sanford in an insane asylum, Scott was returned as property to Irene Emerson. However, in 1850, Emerson had been remarried to an abolitionist, Calvin C. Chaffee, who shortly thereafter was elected to Congress. In a bizarre turn of events, Chaffee was apparently unaware that his wife owned arguably the most prominent slave in America until a month before the Supreme Court decision. Too late to intervene, the severely criticized Chaffee proceeded to have Emerson return Scott to his original owners, the Blow family, who, as Missouri residents, could emancipate him. Scott was formally freed on May 26, 1857 and worked as a porter in St. Louis during the less than nine months before he died from tuberculosis in September 1858.

Dred Scott is interred in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. Harriet was thought to be buried near her husband, but it was later learned that she was buried somewhere in Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale, Missouri.

In 1997, Dred and Harriet Scott were inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

References

  1. ^ Vishneski, John. "What the Court Decided in Dred Scott v. Sandford". The American Journal of Legal History 32(4): 373-390.
  2. ^ "Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case"
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