Dred Scott v. Sandford

Lesson Plan - Get It!

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Missouri Compromise

By the 1820s, the United States had found a balance between free and slave states.

With 11 free and 11 slave states, the rest of the country's future was uncertain. When new territories entered the Union, how the power imbalance would be handled had to be decided.

To understand the politics of this compromise, watch the following video.

For decades, maintaining this balance in Congress persisted. However, by the 1850s, there was a new way to decide whether a state would be free.

During this antebellum period, Kansas and Nebraska were territories about to become states when the U.S. government decided to embrace the principle of states' rights. Kansas and Nebraska were given the choice to decide on their own whether they would allow the institution of slavery.

By embracing this strategy of states' rights, the federal government was able to deflect the issue of slavery. Many politicians were reluctant to deal head-on with the divisive issue.

Dred Scott

Dred Scott was an enslaved man in the slave state of Missouri. His first owner, Mr. Emerson, took him through the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin.

After returning to Missouri, Scott sued Emerson because he believed any time in a free state meant he was immediately emancipated. Past court cases, such as Somerset v. Stewart and Winny v. Whitesides, had set the precedent that an enslaved person must be freed in free territory.

However, the case got nowhere in the Missouri court, where the justices asserted Scott should have sued while still in free territory. As the debate over slavery heated up in the 1850s, courts were less willing to rule on the side of enslaved individuals.

In 1853, Dred Scott was sold to John Sanford, a resident of New York state.

While still in Missouri, Scott filed a new case against his new owner based on the same argument: Dred Scott v. Sandford. [Although the man's name was Sanford, the case was filed as Sandford, so that is the accurate case name.]

The only difference between this new case and Scott's original suit was that Sanford was a resident of a different state. The Supreme Court must deal with interstate lawsuits because no single state has the authority to adjudicate.

• So what did the United States Supreme Court decide?

Dred Scott v. Sandford

The Supreme Court found no grounds to hear Dred Scott's argument.

Follow the facts at that time to understand this decision.

• ⇒ Slavery was legal in 1854.
• ⇒ Slavery is the ownership of another person.
• ⇒ If you own someone, they are your property.
• ⇒ The U.S. Constitution states that the federal government cannot confiscate property without compensation.

• Does that make sense?

It is horrific to consider people to be property. At that time, though, certain people were considered property and, therefore, could not be taken away by the government.

Based on this argument, the Supreme Court went even further and said that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

• How?
• What did the Missouri Compromise have to do with this case?

Politics

James Buchanan won the 1856 presidential election and did not want slavery to be an issue during his term. He hoped that this court case would settle the matter and tried to convince Chief Justice Roger Taney how important it was to neutralize the conflict before it got out of hand.

Taney, concerned with maintaining peace in the United States, had to decide what to do.

• Should he uphold the precedent of past court cases or ensure his good standing with the president?
• Should he try to stop the conflict of slavery from taking over American politics?

What Chief Justice Taney did was similar to what the Supreme Court did in the court case Marbury v. Madison.

Taney and the Supreme Court asserted that Congress never had the authority to issue the Missouri Compromise Act. Because Congress overstepped its authority by choosing where a person was considered property and where that person was not, the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to determine if Dred Scott's entrance into the free state of Illinois should have given him his freedom.

The official Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, courtesy of JUSTIA, read:

Now, ... the right of property in an enslaved person is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. ... Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the [36°N 36' latitude] line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void...

While it is cold, without a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the ownership of people, the court found the government had no standing to rule on the matter.

If the Missouri Compromise were unconstitutional, the premise of becoming free by going into a "free state" was no longer a question the Supreme Court even had to answer.

This was one of the few times the Supreme Court sided against enslaved people, marking an agitated period in American history.

James Buchanan cared more about preserving the Union than abolishing slavery. Abraham Lincoln, who succeeded Buchanan as president, also cared more about the Union. However, Lincoln would eventually realize the Union would crumble if the institution of slavery continued.

Continue on to the Got It? section to explore what effect deflecting the question of slavery had on the debate over slavery.

• Did the reasoning behind this case hold up?