In the Kansas fight each side hoped the Supreme Court would settle the question of slavery in the territories. In 1857 it tried. The case came from a man named Dred Scott, who had been enslaved by an army surgeon, John Emerson, and taken to live in the free state of Illinois and in Wisconsin Territory, where the Missouri Compromise banned slavery. After returning to Missouri, Scott sued for his family's freedom.
Key idea
In Dred Scott v. Sandford (March 6, 1857) the Court ruled 7 to 2, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, that (1) Black Americans, free or enslaved, were not citizens who could sue in federal court, and (2) Congress could not ban slavery in the territories, so the Missouri Compromise's ban had been unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) overturned the citizenship ruling.
Why it works
Taney argued that the framers of the Constitution had not counted people of African descent among the "people" and "citizens" it protected, so Scott could not bring a case. On the territories, he reasoned that enslaved people were property under the law, and the Fifth Amendment barred Congress from taking property without due process, so Congress could not forbid slaveholders to bring enslaved people into a territory. Justices Benjamin Curtis and John McLean dissented. Curtis showed that free Black men had voted in five of the states that ratified the Constitution, and so were part of "the people" from the start.
Worked example: Why the ruling hit Republicans so hard
The Republican Party's main goal was for Congress to keep slavery out of the territories. What did the Dred Scott ruling do to that goal?
- The Court said Congress had no power to ban slavery in the territories.
- So the Republican platform, as written, was unconstitutional in the Court's view.
- It also cast doubt on popular sovereignty: if Congress could not ban slavery, could a territorial legislature?
- Republicans said the decision was wrong and should be reversed; many Southern leaders welcomed it as settling the matter for good.
Answer: It declared the Republicans' central policy unconstitutional, which drove the sections further apart.
Common mistake
The decision did not settle the dispute. It inflamed it. It struck at the core of the Republican platform and was widely denounced in the North, and it split Democrats, who argued over what it meant for popular sovereignty. Check what happened next: within four years, the Republicans won the presidency and the South began to secede.
In May 1857, Taylor Blow, a son of Scott's first enslaver, Peter Blow, gained ownership of Scott and his family and freed them. Dred Scott died in 1858. Today the decision is widely considered among the worst in the Court's history.