Dred Scott Decision

Background Information:

Dred Scott was a former slave that was then freed by his owner. He then lived as a freed man in a non-slave state. Once he returned to a slave state he claimed that since he lived in a free state that he earned his right to be free through emancipation. The case was then brought to the Supreme Court where the trial of Dred Scott v. Sanford was taken place in 1857.

In the courthouse:

The sticky situation behind this court case was the obvious, that Scott was a black male. The only people with basically any rights in this era were white men. White women could not vote, have property, or even be a part of businesses. Since Scott was a black man then he had no rights. Blacks were not US Citizens so they could not petition for their rights to be free since they had none. Taney wrote in the final verdict that the framers of the constitution stated about blacks that they, "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." Blacks were meant to be treated as property and not US Citizens. Even though the Constitution clearly states, "all men are created equal", Taney argues that slaves were always identified as property throughout history so the framers did not intend to include slaves.

The final decision was that Scott could not sue in the first place since he did not have any rights as a US Citizen. Therefore the court came to the verdict that there was no case but this gave hope to many abolitionists. It then set forth the argument behind granting African Americans citizenship. This set forth to the 14th Amendment and the pursuit for freedom of all African Americans.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case