The Dread Scott decision

Dred Scott vs Sanford: The Decision that started the Civil War.
The Dred Scott decision that occurred on March 6th, 1857, is the first earth
shattering landmark that help escalated the United States into a Civil War. The decision has its
roots spawned up during the early 1800s when two major deals (The Louisiana Purchase and
The Missouri Compromise) helped substantiate the debate among pro-abolitionist and pro
slavery settlers into what future west expansion would look like going into the nineteenth
century. As the debate of slavery intensified, the Missouri Compromise in 1821 intoned to
settle the dispute between the two sides when the U.S. Government admitted Maine into the
Union but disputes between Missouri on what part would be slave territory and free territory
brought both side into constant battles. Scott v. Sanford is significant because it not only sets
off a chain reaction that set off the Civil War but made the issue of states’ rights give a legal
definition of what states can do to another human being when he or she has been traffic in
manual labor because of state laws that are outdated.
The political setting of this case takes place fifty years before the court case of
when land between the United States government and French settlers is negotiating
settlements west of the Mississippi River. In 1804, Napoleon’s government and the United
States government was in an intense negotiation that would settle for lands that span from the
southern tip of land to the north before entering Canada. But in return the French would get aBarkley, John
large sum of equity to the sum of fifty-million dollars to pay off some war debts accumulated
from the Seven-year war. The French only controlled part of the land it claimed to posse since
Native Americans also owned some of the land before they colonized the area. But due to
clauses that the Native Americans agreed to in the constitution, the land would become
renegotiated between the Native Americans and the United States as being Indian territory and
would not become recognized in the eyes of the law. In 1820, however, due to pro-abolitionist
and pro-slavery factions getting into skirmishes, the United States would sign the Missouri
Compromise, which would allow Maine to be a free state and Missouri to become a slave state.
The Missouri Compromise is extremely controversial due to the unlawful divisiveness that split
slave states and states that prohibited slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska act eventually set off an
avalanche of battles in the Missouri-Kansas area between pro-abolitionist and Missouri
Bushwhackers. Both sides committed terrorist acts that did result in innocent lives’ loss due to
martyrish behaviors from noted people like William Quantrill and John Brown.
Dred Scott was born into slavery in the State of Virginia around the turn of the
nineteenth century, though the exact date is not well known because slaves did not have
historical records. He’s a slave who has a master goes that by a man named Peter Blow who
moves to Huntsville, Alabama in 1818 with six other slaves, around 1830, Peter gave up farming
to retire and sold his slaves to a wealthy St. Louis doctor who went by the name of John
Emerson. After Emerson purchased Scott, he took him and the other five slaves to Fort
Armstrong in the free state of Illinois. Illinois is by their own law a free territory and ban slavery
under the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. Emerson eventually moved Scott and the rest of his
slaves from Illinois to Fort Snelling in the territory of Wisconsin in what will become the state ofBarkley, John
Minnesota later. In the Wisconsin territory, slavery is illegal under the Wisconsin Constitution
in 1820. During Dred Scott’s visit at Fort Snelling, he married Harriet Robinson in a civil
ceremony by her owner’s wishes. Slave marriages at the time did not hold any barring under
the U.S. law so the records of their matrimony did not have an official certificate. In 1837, the
army ordered Emerson to Jefferson Barracks Military Post which was south of St. Louis and
where he married Eliza Irene Sanford in February of 1838. Emerson sends Scott and his wife to
a large plantation where they served their master and his spouse. Scott did have a daughter
during the travel on a steamboat on the Mississippi River in Illinois and eventually what became
of Iowa. The baby was born on free-soil and names the baby Eliza and was theoretically a free
black person in the eyes of both the Illinois and United States law. Upon entering Louisiana
Dred Scott and his family could have sued the state for not recognizing that he was a free
person but did not. Towards the end of 1838, Emerson moves to Fort Snelling and by 1840,
Emerson’s wife, Irene had returned to St. Louis with their slaves and hired them out to other
people in the area for revenue. John Emerson died in 1843 and left the territory and slaves to
his wife, Scott in that time had attempted to buy his wife and kids to freedom but Irene refused
to do so and that prompt Scott to legal action.
Dred Scott would get help from legal advisers who were a couple of extreme
abolitionists to sue Irene and her late husband for refusing his freedom in a Missouri Court in
1848. Scott based his legal ramifications on the past court cases such as Somerset v. Stewart,
Winny v. Whitesides, and Rachel v. Walker requiring his emancipation in free territories. The
court case assign to Judge Alexander Hamilton who was sympathetic to the freedom of slaves
but after cross examination testimony that was thrown out from Samuel Russell, a grocer whoBarkley, John
had testified he was leasing Scott from Irene Emerson. Thus, Russell’s testimony was ruled “out
of court context” and the jury ruled in favor of Emerson. Later, in December of 1847, Judge
Hamilton did grant Scott a retrial to the dismay and appeal of Irene Emerson. This retrial would
occur in 1848, but due a fire, the cholera epidemic and two continuances the new trial got
delayed until January of 1850. In the 1850 retrial, Dred Scott used representation of two new
lawyers, Alexander P. Field and David N. Hall, both had shared offices with the daughter in law
brother of Peter Blow. The hearsay problem deposition from Adeline Russell that she had
leased the Scotts from the Emerson’s. The jury ruled in favor of Dred Scott and his family while
Emerson felt hurt that she loss her slaves, and Emerson set up her appeal to the Missouri
Supreme court unwilling to let her slaves go. In November in 1852, the Missouri supreme court
passed down a decision and said Scott’s family were still slaves and should have sued the state
of Louisiana for not recognizing his freedom since he had a free daughter. David Hall was
expressing this crucial case and how important it was to the balance of this country “Times are
not now as they were when the former decisions on this subject were made. Since then, not
only individuals but States have been possessed with a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery,
whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures, whose inevitable consequences must
be the overthrow and destruction of our government”
. Scott v. Sandford case looked hopeless,
and the family of Peter Blow could not pay for the legal fees to help Dred Scott and his family.
Scott on top of this loss both of his lawyers (Alexander Field moved to Louisiana and David Hall
had passed away) and the case was undertaken pro bono by a guy named Roswell Field who
employed Dred Scott as a custodial service. The Missouri supreme court made its decision and
Judge Hamilton denied the release of Dred Scott’s rent records that Emerson wanted asBarkley, John
evidence that might have been seen favorably in Emerson’s favor. In the new trial in 1854 Judge
Robert William Wells led the jury to use the Missouri law on questioning Scott’s freedom and
they determined he was still a slave and the jury ruled in favor with Sanford. Dred Scott
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where the clerk did not spell his name right so in
consequence the case was recorded as Dred Scott v. Sanford with a longer title. Scott was
represented by Montgomery Blair and George Ticknor Curtis (whose Brother Benjamin Curtis
served on U.S. Supreme Court) and Sanford was represented by Reverdy Johnson and Henry S,
Geyer.
In this case, the two sides agreed on a statement of facts that claimed that Scott
was sold as property by Emerson to John Sanford, though that turned out to be a lie. John
Emerson had died in 1843, and Scott filled his first suit against Irene in 1847. The records did
not exist between John Emerson and Sanford or Sanford’s exchange and Irene for any manual
labor contract. Murky circumstances rose when ownership of the creation of a test case was
not spoken out in favor for Dred Scott. President Buchanan had a significant influence on the
case in that he had a friend on the Supreme Court, Justice John Catron to see if this decision
was a good political ploy to run during his reelection as President. Buchanan eventually got
Associate Justice Robert Cooper Grier, who was a Northern sympathizer to join the Southern
majority in the Dred Scott case.
The seven Supreme Court justice joined the same opinion as Chief Justice Roger
Taney. As Taney states on this matter “[The Farmers thought blacks have] no rights which the
white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justify and lawfully reduced to
slavery for his benefit”. The primary reason on why the court rules was Taney’s assertion thatBarkley, John
Black slaves and most of the ancestors were never meant to be apart of the American social
and political experiment. “We think ... that [black people] are not included, and were not
intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim
none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of
the United States.” as Justice Roger Taney states. After the ruling, Irene Emerson moved back
to Massachusetts in 1850 and married Calvin C. Chaffee, who was chosen to be on the
Republican and Know Nothing ticket. Chaffee even made false promises Scott that he had
nothing to do with his enslavement and that it was Dred Scott’s brother-in-law who was
responsible. Scott went on to work in a hotel in St. Louis where was a minor celebrity while his
wife took in the hotel’s laundry. Dred Scott eventually succumbed to tuberculosis and died on
November 7th
, 1858, and his wife Harriet died on June 17th, 1876.
This case had large ramifications that saw the laws on both the state and federal
level that were challenged constantly. The political challenges were daunting on the state as
well as federal level and would lead the country in a war that is being fought in its own entire
country. In essence, the reason why this case led to the Civil War is because the case challenged
the ideas of state laws vs federal laws and the moral issue of slavery that was already outlawed
in Great Britain and France. The War itself launched America into a five-year period where
brothers were in constant war with each other. Lessons of this trial still haunt the United States
to this day and will for as long as this country stands.Barkley, John