Term Papers on The Dredd Scott Case

Term Paper Title	The Dredd Scott Case
# of Words	2555
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	10.22

The Dredd Scott Case

The Dredd Scott case involved a landmark decision in the history of the Supreme Court,  in the history of
the United States the decision in this case was one of the most damaging statements in the history of the
Supreme Court, involving the citizenship of a black person in the United States, and the
constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise in 1820.  The history of a black man named Dredd Scott
states that he was a slave  originally owed by a family by the name of Blow, which ended up selling him
in 1833 to an army surgeon by the name of Dr. John Emerson of St. Luis.  Due to his involvement as an
army surgeon, Emerson was transferred to numerous places such as Rock Island, Illinois, Fort Snelling in
the Wisconsin Territory then back to St. Louis in the end of 1838.  Scott had accompanied Emerson
throughout this period.  Emerson had taken Scott to places that forbidden slavery according to the
Missouri Compromise of 1820 and Scott was even allowed to marry during this!
time period on free territory, his companion being a woman who was also a slave owned by Emerson.  As
Emerson and Scott had returned to St. Louis, a territory where slavery was legal, Emerson died and Scott
was left to his  widow, who eventually gave Scott back to his original owners, the Blows.  Henry Blow,
Scott’s original master, was opposed to the extension of slavery into the Western territories, and Blow
lent Scott’s residence on free soil in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory had made him a free man.  In
1846, Dredd Scott brought suit in the state court on the grounds that residence in a free territory
released him from slavery.  A lower state court had found to be in favor of Scott, but in 1852, the
Supreme Court of Missouri ruled that upon his return to territory where slavery was legal, the status of
slavery was reattached to him and therefore he had no standing before the court.  The case was brought
before the federal circuit court, which took jurisdiction, but held against Scott.  The case was taken on
appeal to the Supreme Court, where it was argued at length in 1855 and 1856 and finally decided in 1857.
The decision handed down by a majority of the vote of the court was that there was no power in the in the
existing form of government to make citizens slave or free, !
and at the time of the formation of the US Constitution they were  not and could not be citizens of the
United States in any of the states.  Scott was ruled  still to be a slave, and not a citizen of Missouri
or any US state for that matter, from which it followed that he had no right to sue in the federal
courts.  Now it was not so much the court’s decision that was so damaging, but the series of opinions
that Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and how we look at it.  The court had announced its
decision on March 6, 1857.  By a 7 - 2 vote, the court ruled against Scott.  Of the seven opinions
written by the members of the majority, Chief Justice Taney’s is considered to present the forma; view of
the Court, and I think that these are the most damaging statements in the case.  Taney first dealt with
the issues of whether Dredd Scott or any slave or descendant of slaves could be a slave s could be a
citizen under the US constitution.  It was Taney’s opinion as the !
majority of the court that:  "they (slaves) are not, and that they are not included, and were not
intended to be included, under the word "citizen" in the US constitution, and can, therefore, claim none
of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United
States."
     Taney drew this conclusion from an examination of historical practices and the intent of  the
Framers of the Constitution.  "Slaves," he said," had more than a century before the Constitution came
into existence been regarded as being of an inferior order, and all together unfit to associate with the
white race, in social or political relations;  and so far inferior that they had no rights which the
white man was bound to respect...

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