The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott
The Dred Scott Decision
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott, a slave who maintained he had been emancipated as a result of having lived with his master in the free state of Illinois and in federal territory where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. The decision did much more than resolve the fate of an elderly black man and his family: Dred Scott v. Sanford was the first instance in which the Supreme Court invalidated a major piece of federal legislation. The decision declared that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the federal territories, thereby striking a severe blow at the legitimacy of the emerging Republican party and intensifying the sectional conflict over slavery.
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When the first case began in 1847, Dred Scott was about 50 years old. He was born in Virginia about 1799, and was the property, as his parents had been, of the Peter Blow family. He had spent his entire life as a slave, and was illiterate. Dred Scott moved to St. Louis with the Blows in 1830, but was soon sold due to his master's financial problems. He was purchased by Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon stationed at Jefferson Barracks, and accompanied him to posts in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. During this period, Dred Scott married Harriet Robinson, also a slave, at Fort Snelling; they later had two children, Eliza and Lizzie. John Emerson married Irene Sanford during a brief stay in Louisiana. In 1842, the Scotts returned with Dr. and Mrs. Emerson in St. Louis. John Emerson died the following year, and it is believed that Mrs. Emerson hired out Dred Scott, Harriet, and their children to work for other families.
so she appealed her case to the Missouri State Supreme Court, which in 1852 reversed the ruling made at the Old Courthouse, stating that "times now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made." The slavery issue was becoming more divisive nationwide, and provided the court with political reasons to return Dred Scott to slavery. The court was saying that Missouri law allowed slavery, and it would uphold the rights of slave-owners in the state at all costs.
in the federal courts on any matter. In addition, he declared that Scott had never been free, due to the fact that slaves were personal property; thus the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, and the Federal Government had no right to prohibit slavery in the new territories. The court appeared to be sanctioning slavery under the terms of the Constitution itself, and saying that slavery could not be outlawed or restricted within the United States. The American public reacted very strongly to the Dred Scott Decision. Antislavery groups feared that slavery would spread unchecked. The new Republican Party, founded in 1854 to prohibit the spread of slavery, renewed their fight to gain control of the Congress and the courts. Their well-planned political campaign of 1860, coupled with divisive issues which split the Democratic Party, led to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and South Carolina's secession from the Union. The Dred Scott Decision moved the country to the brink of Civil War.
Ironically, Irene Emerson was remarried in 1850 to Calvin C. Chaffee, a northern congressman opposed to slavery. After the Supreme Court decision, Mrs. Chaffee turned Dred and Harriet Scott and their two daughters over to Dred's old friends, the Blows, who gave the Scotts their freedom in May 1857. On September 17, 1858, Dred Scott died of tuberculosis and was buried in St. Louis. His grave was moved in the 1860s to Calvary Cemetery in northern St. Louis, and marked due to the efforts of the Rev. Edward Dowling in 1957. Dred Scott did not live to see the fratricidal war touched off at Fort Sumter in 1861, but did live to gain his freedom. The ultimate result of the war, the end of slavery throughout the United States, was not something Dred Scott could have foreseen in 1846, when he decided to sue for his freedom in St. Louis' Old Courthouse.
Slavery in Missouri was different from slavery in the deep south. The majority of Missouri's slaves worked as field hands on farms along the fertile valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. St. Louis, the largest city in the state, maintained a fairly small African-American population throughout the early part of the nineteenth century. Life in the cities was different for African-Americans than life on a rural plantation. The opportunities for interaction with whites and free blacks were constant, as were those for greater freedom within their slave status. Because slavery was unprofitable in cities such as St. Louis, African-Americans were often hired out to others without a transfer of ownership. In fact, many masters illegally allowed their slaves to hire themselves out and find their own lodgings. This unusual state of affairs taught African-Americans to fend for themselves, to market their abilities wisely, and to be thrifty with their money.
were off-loaded from river boats. Real estate was also a business known to free blacks. Others owned large barber emporiums, some with real gold faucets, marble countertops and crystal chandeliers, which were used by all the important white men of the town. These barbers were able to gather information that their white customers discussed and pass it along to the black community. Many became so rich that they became known as the "Colored Aristocracy" of St. Louis.
