1857
Dred Scott v. Sandford was a historic ruling by the United States Supreme Court that declared that people of African descent were not citizens of the United States and that Congress had no Constitutional authority to regulate slavery in U.S. territories.
The U.S. Constitution and Slavery
When delegates to the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia in 1787, one of the more daunting tasks that they faced was resolving sectional differences between the North and South centered on the issue of slavery. After weeks of debate proved futile, the delegates negotiated a series of compromises that enabled them to proceed with their primary assignment of forming "a more perfect Union." In the short term, the compromises regarding the status of slavery established in the Constitution facilitated the creation of the new republic (at the expense of blacks held in bondage), but they also sowed the seeds of turmoil that began coming to fruition as the nation expanded west in the coming decades.
The Northwest Ordinance
At the same time delegates to the Constitutional Convention were creating plans for a new government, representatives to the Congress of the existing government, established under the Articles of Confederation, were meeting in New York. On July 13, 1787, the Confederation Congress enacted "An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio," which stipulated "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory. . . " That legislation, more commonly known as the Northwest Ordinance, had the effect of establishing the Ohio River as the border separating free and slave states between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. For the next three decades, that boundary forestalled major sectional disputes over slavery.
The Louisiana Purchase
Circumstances changed in 1803 when Napoleon Bonaparte sold President Thomas Jefferson 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. In hindsight, the Louisiana Purchase may be seen as a logical progression of the American Westward Movement, but at the time, it created new challenges for the federal government. In addition to land ownership issues regarding the native inhabitants, Congress eventually was forced to address the subject of slavery in the new territory.
The Missouri Compromise
In 1818, the residents of Missouri petitioned Congress for statehood. An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 slaves lived in the territory at that time. Southerners expected Missouri to be admitted as a slave state, but New York Congressman James Tallmadge introduced an amendment to the Missouri statehood measure that would have gradually ended slavery in the new state. The Tallmadge Amendment initiated a year of acrimonious debate in both houses of Congress. Legislators finally reached a compromise in 1820, admitting Missouri as a slave state in return for admitting Maine as a free state. Wishing to avoid similar conflicts in the future, Congress also prohibited slavery in the remainder of former Louisiana Territory, north of the southern border of Missouri (36°30' north latitude).
The Mexican-American War and The Wilmot Proviso
Although not a perfect solution in the minds of all parties (especially abolitionists), the Missouri Compromise muffled the debate over the extension slavery in the United States for approximately three decades. Things changed in 1846 when the U.S. initiated a war with Mexico that was destined to expand American territorial possessions in the West. Only three months after the war began, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot inserted a "proviso" into an appropriations bill sponsored by President James K. Polk that was designed to end hostilities by acquiring Mexican territory. Wilmot’s proviso stipulated that, in any land acquired from Mexico, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime . . . ." Variations of Wilmot's Proviso were introduced several times in Congress during the next few years, but they were never enacted. Nonetheless, the measure did succeed in fomenting sectional animosities over the issue of the extension of slavery.
The Compromise of 1850
The source of the discord transformed from abstract to concrete in 1848 when Mexico ceded vast tracts of land to the United States, including most of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, as well as all of present-day California, Nevada, and Utah. Debate over the future of slavery in those territories widened the schism between the North and South. As the nation moved toward disunion, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of measures, collectively known as the Compromise of 1850, aimed at resolving the mounting sectional strife. Perhaps the most consequential of Clay's conciliatory recommendations was a proposal to implement popular sovereignty to determine the future of slavery in the Southwest. First espoused by Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, the concept of popular sovereignty espoused letting the residents of the territories decide for themselves the status of slavery in the area where they lived.
For several months, Congress, the press, and the public at large engaged in heated debates over Clay's proposals. Finally, Congressional leaders were able to cobble together enough support from the various factions involved for all of the separate measures to be enacted. Moderates across the country celebrated the legislation, believing that the Union had been saved. President Fillmore proclaimed a "final settlement" to the sectional differences that plagued the nation. Extremists on both sides of the debate were not so easily convinced. Free-Soil Senator Salmon P. Chase of Ohio could have been speaking for both sides when he guardedly observed "the question of slavery in the territories has been avoided. It has not been settled."
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Chase was correct. At the same time that the nation was struggling with the slavery issue, settlers and entrepreneurs were clamoring to occupy the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase. "Kansas Fever" was rampant. Before the area could be settled, however, it needed to be organized as a territory so that the government could displace the native population, survey the area, and implement regulations for land ownership.
Beginning in 1851, Congress considered several petitions to establish a territory west of the Missouri River. Fearful of the admission of more free states to the Union, Southerners in the Senate refused to support the measures if slavery was banned from the territory as required by the Missouri Compromise. Eager to see the new territory established, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, chairman of the Committee on Territories, introduced legislation that orchestrated a way to appease his southern colleagues. Douglas proposed the organization of two territories separated at the 40th parallel: Nebraska to the North and Kansas to the South. The new measure also stipulated that the section of the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase was "inoperative and void" because it had been "superseded" by the popular sovereignty provisions of the Compromise of 1850. Although hotly debated, the Senate voted to approve the Kansas-Nebraska Act, as submitted by Douglas, on March 4, 1854. The House followed suit on May 22, and President Franklin Pierce signed the bill into law on May 30, 1854.
Douglas believed that the implementation of popular sovereignty would bring the sectional dispute over the extension of slavery to a halt. Instead, the Kansas-Nebraska Act kindled the opposite reaction. Political bickering turned into bloodshed in Kansas as ruffians on both sides of the issue hastened to the new territory in an attempt to influence the vote over slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act also accelerated a complete realignment of the political landscape in the United States. The Democratic Party lost most of its support among Northerners and evolved to become the face of pro-slavery forces in the South. The Whig Party ceased to exist in the South and began crumbling in the North, to the extent that an amalgam of disaffected Democrats, abolitionists, and free-soilers coalesced as the new Republican Party. The two-party system that emerged from the turmoil caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act was one that was divided almost exclusively along sectional lines.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
While Congress struggled to find a political solution to the issue of slavery that was dividing the nation, some began looking to the judicial system for deliverance. Unbeknownst to the political leaders of the time, events involving a common slave named Dred Scott had begun to transpire three decades earlier that eventually compelled the United States Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter.
Dred Scott was born into slavery in Virginia at the dawn of the nineteenth century. He moved with his owner, Peter Blow, to Alabama and then settled in St. Louis, Missouri in 1830. Blow died at St. Louis in 1832. Sometime between 1831 and 1833, Blow or his heirs sold Scott to Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon stationed at Jefferson Barracks, just south of St. Louis. On December 1, 1833, Emerson took Scott to Illinois (where slavery was prohibited by the Northwest Ordinance), when he was transferred to Fort Armstrong. In May 1836, Emerson took Scott with him when he was reassigned to Fort Snelling, in the Wisconsin Territory (where slavery was banned by the Missouri Compromise of 1820). While at Fort Snelling, Emerson allowed Scott to marry Harriet Robinson, a slave owned by Major Lawrence Taliaferro, Indian agent for the territory. Shortly thereafter, Emerson acquired ownership of Robinson.
In 1837, Emerson left the Scotts in Wisconsin when the Army transferred him back to Jefferson Barracks and then to Fort Jessup, Louisiana. While in Louisiana, Emerson married Eliza Irene Sanford, the daughter of a Missouri slaveholder, on February 6, 1838. Two months later, Emerson sent for the Scotts to join him and his bride in Louisiana. In September, the Emersons and the Scotts briefly returned to St. Louis and then traveled back to Fort Snelling, where they all resided for the next year and a half, until May 1840.
On May 29, 1840, the army sent Emerson to Florida to participate in the Second Seminole War. Emerson left his wife and slaves in St. Louis while he was away. During Emerson's absence, the Scott's were hired out. Emerson left the army in August 1842 and entered private practice, first in St. Louis and then at Davenport, Iowa in 1843. On December 29 of that year, Emerson died, leaving the Scotts to his wife. Irene Emerson returned to St. Louis to live with her father. The Scotts reportedly tried to purchase their freedom after Emerson's death, but Mrs. Emerson refused their offer. Instead, she again hired the Scotts out for labor.
With their offer rebuffed, Dred and Harriet Scott filed identical petitions with the St. Louis Circuit Court, on April 6, 1846, seeking their freedom on the grounds that they had lived for long periods of time in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin. Their suit was based on an 1824 Missouri statute that enabled anyone held wrongfully in slavery to sue for their freedom. The Scott's had strong legal precedent on their side. Soon after the 1824 Missouri law was enacted, the state supreme court ruled in the case of Winny v Whiteside that if a slave owner took a slave to free territory and established residence there, the slave was then free, even if the slave returned to Missouri. That ruling established the judicial standard in Missouri of "once free, always free." In 1834, the state supreme court further substantiated the Scotts' future claims in the case of Rachel v. Walker, when it held that "if an officer of the United States Army takes a slave to a territory where slavery is prohibited, he forfeits his property."
The Scotts' case came to trial on June 30, 1847, with Judge Alexander Hamilton presiding. The Scotts were denied their petition due to a legal technicality regarding the testimony of a witness during the trial. However, Judge Hamilton ruled that they Scotts were entitled to a new trial. Emerson's lawyers disagreed and filed suit with the Missouri Supreme Court to prevent a second hearing. The supreme court sided with the Scotts and on June 30, 1848, by unanimous decision, approved a second trial. Unfortunately for the Scotts, the wheels of justice turned slowly and the new trial did not begin until early 1850. Once again, Judge Hamilton presided. On January 12, the jury found in favor of the Scotts and ruled them free. Judge Hamilton denied Emerson's request for a third hearing, so her attorneys filed an appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court.
In an effort to simplify the proceedings, attorneys for both sides agreed that only Dred Scott's case would be advanced to the state supreme court and that the court's decision would apply to Harriet Scott as well. Considering the precedents already established by the Missouri Supreme Court, Scott's case looked solid. Nevertheless, the political climate had changed in Missouri since the high court rendered it decisions in the cases of Winny v Whiteside and Rachel v. Walker. Thirty years of legalized bondage had engendered much stronger pro-slavery sentiment in Missouri. In a state that previously championed the "once free, always free" doctrine, only one of twenty-five freedom suits filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court resulted in freedom between 1844 and 1846. Equally foreboding for Scott was the fact that two of the three justices on the Missouri Supreme Court were supporters of slavery. Not surprisingly, in a two-to-one decision, the high court reversed the lower court's ruling on March 22, 1852, and the Scotts remained slaves.
Having run out of options in the Missouri judicial system, Scott's attorneys searched for grounds to justify an appeal to the federal courts. A fortuitous change in the ownership of the Scott family provided the opportunity that they were seeking. By 1853, Irene Emerson's brother, John Sanford was registered as owner of the Scott family. Emerson had moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and married Dr. Calvin C. Chaffee in 1850. Chaffee was an outspoken opponent of slavery who apparently did not know that his wife was a slaveowner. It is unclear if Sanford was listed as owner of the Scotts because he was serving as executor of the deceased Dr. Emerson's estate, or if Irene Emerson sold the Scotts to her brother due to her new husband's abolitionist convictions, or if she had Sanford act in her behalf in order to maintain her secret. Whatever the case, the fact that Sanford was a New York resident provided Scott's attorneys with grounds to file their suit in federal court because the parties in the litigation resided in different states.
On November 2, 1853, Dred Scott filed suit in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Missouri. John Sanford was named as the defendant in the case, but due to a clerical error in the filing procedure, the suit was listed as Scott v. Sandford. When the suit went to trial in 1854, Sanford's attorneys challenged the court's jurisdiction on the grounds that Scott was not a citizen because he was a "negro of African descent." The presiding judge, Robert W. Wells disagreed and allowed the proceedings to continue. During the trial, Sanford's attorneys argued that even if Scott had gained his freedom while residing in free territories, he was once again relegated to slave status when he voluntarily returned to Missouri. The jury agreed with the defense's reasoning and found in favor of Sanford. Scott's attorney, Hugh Garland, then filed a petition to have the case heard by the United States Supreme Court during the December 1854 term.
The Supreme Court agreed to review the case but did not hear arguments until February 1856. By that time, the suit had become acause célèbre. Anti-slavery factions arranged for high-profile attorneys Montgomery Blair and George T. Curtis to represent Scott. Reverdy Johnson, a nationally-prominent constitutional lawyer, and Henry S. Geyer, a sitting U.S. Senator from Missouri, argued the case for Sanford at no charge. The suit took on increased political importance when Sanford's attorneys challenged the constitutional authority of Congress to regulate slavery in U.S. territories. After hearing oral arguments in May, the court called for the case to be reargued in December. The delay may have been prompted by concerns about forcing presidential candidates in the November election of 1856, to take a stand on whatever decision the court rendered.
New arguments in the case began on December 15, 1856. When the court met to discuss the case on February 14, 1857, they chose Justice Samuel Nelson to write the majority opinion, which ruled in favor of Sanford, but did not address the more volatile issues of African-American citizenship and the constitutionality of Congressional regulation of slavery in the territories. Apparently, Nelson's written opinion did not go far enough to satisfy the views of the majority of justices, five of whom were from slaveholding families, and seven of whom were appointed by Southern presidents. The court chose to reject Nelson's decision and instead, eight of the nine justices wrote separate opinions. On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney read his judgment, which a majority of the justices had adopted as the official opinion of the court.
Taney agreed with Sanford's attorneys that Scott was not entitled to bring suit in federal court because neither he nor anyone else of African descent, whether slaves or freedmen, were citizens of the United States. In Taney's words,
It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.
Taney did not stop there. He went on to declare that Congressional attempts to regulate slavery in U.S. territories were unconstitutional. Taney reasoned that Congress could not deprive white inhabitants of the territories of their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, or property (including their slaves) without due process of law, any more than it could deny citizens of their First Amendment right to free speech. Although Taney specifically targeted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, his ruling also had the effect of nullifying the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The court's ruling had major repercussions on the sectional dispute over slavery that was dividing the nation. While Southerners hailed the decision, Northerners denounced Taney and the court. The pro-slavery decision galvanized anti-slavery sentiment in the North and strengthened the emerging Republican Party. Northerners who previously viewed slavery as a peculiar institution of the South were aroused by speculation that if slaveowners could not be denied of their Fifth Amendment rights in the territories, then what was to stop them from bringing their human "property" to the North. Far from resolving the sectional differences dividing the North and South, the Dred Scott decision widened the schism even more, inching the nation closer to civil war.
Eleven weeks after Taney read his decision, the Scotts were back in court under happier circumstances. Possibly succumbing to mounting political pressure brought to bear on her husband, Irene Chaffee transferred ownership of the Scotts back to the Blow family, which had financially supported Dred Scott's trek through the Missouri court system. The new owners thereupon granted the Scotts their freedom. The Scotts' journey came full circle on May 26, 1857, when Judge Alexander Hamilton approved the Scotts' manumission papers in the St. Louis Circuit Court.
Dred Scott lived less than one and one-half years as a free man. He died on September 17, 1858 of tuberculosis. Harriet Scott died eighteen years later on June 17, 1876.
