Dred Scott

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Dred Scott

Dred Scott (ca. 1795 – 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 had lived, while slaves, in states and territories where slavery was illegal, including Illinois and parts of the Louisiana Purchase. The court ruled 7 to 2 against Scott, finding that he was property and therefore not entitled to file suit in a federal court. This case was one of the major factors leading to the American Civil War.

The Dred Scott case contributed to the war because Scott's master could travel freely through states in which slavery was illegal. 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 is illegal without losing rights to the slaves. This factor greatly upset the Northern Republicans and further split Northern and Southern relations.

Scott traveled with his master John Emerson, an army man who was 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. A little over a year later, a 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 Mrs. Emerson —then living in St. Louis—for $300. The offer was refused. Scott then sought freedom through the courts.

Main article: Dred Scott v. Sandford

Scott went to trial in June of 1847 but lost on a technicality: he could not prove that he and Harriet were owned by Emerson's widow. The following year, the Missouri Supreme Court decided that the case should be retried. In an 1850 retrial, a St. Louis circuit court ruled that Scott and his family were free. Two years later, the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in again, reversing the decision of the lower court. Scott and his lawyers then brought his case to a federal court: the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri. In 1854, the Circuit Court upheld the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court. There was now only one other place to go. Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court, but lost.

[edit] Life of Dred Scott

Dred Scott was born in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1795 as property of the Peter Blow family. 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 Sandford. The Scotts and the Emersons returned to Missouri in 1842. John Emerson died in 1843. John F.A. Sandford, brother of the widow Irene Sandford 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 the Scotts should be freed under the Missouri doctrine of "once free, always free." The widow, Irene Sandford 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 1856, 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. [1]

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."

After the ruling, Scott was returned as property to the widow Emerson. In 1857, she remarried. Because her second husband opposed slavery, Emerson returned Dred Scott and his family to his original owners, the Blow family, who granted him freedom 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.