Okla-homey
3/6/2007, 07:47 AM
March 6, 1857 Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott case
On this day 150 years ago, in a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision on Sandford v. Scott, a case that intensified national divisions over the issue of slavery.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/88/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Chief Justice Roger Taney of Maryland (a slave state) wrote the opinion
In 1834, Dred Scott, a slave, had been taken to Illinois, a free state, and then Wisconsin territory, where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Scott lived in Wisconsin with his master, Dr. John Emerson, a US Army surgeon, for several years before returning to Missouri, a slave state.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/8339/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz15.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Dred Scott. He died in 1858 about a year after the historic decision which bears his name.
In 1846, after Emerson died, Scott sued Dr Emerson's widow for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived as a resident of a free state and territory. He won his suit in a lower court, but the Missouri supreme court reversed the decision.
Scott appealed the decision, and because his new "master" (to whom Scott had been leased by Mrs. Emerson,) John F.A. Sanford, was a resident of New York, a federal court decided to hear the case on the basis of the diversity of state citizenship represented. Note: The case went down in official Court records as Sandford v. Scott because a clerk misspelled appellee Sanford's name and the error was never corrected.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3109/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
From the National Archives
After a federal district court decided against Scott, the case came on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was divided along slavery and antislavery lines; although the Southern justices had a majority.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6973/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz16.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Map of pre-1860 US. Slave states in grey, free in pink. Organized territories in green.
During the trial, the antislavery justices used the case to defend the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, which had been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The Southern majority responded by ruling on this day precisely a century and a half ago, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories, or anywhere else for that matter.
Three of the Southern justices also held that blacks who were slaves or whose ancestors were slaves were not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing to bring any case in federal court.
These rulings all confirmed that, in the view of the nation's highest court, under no condition did Dred Scott have the legal right to request his freedom. The Supreme Court's verdict further inflamed the irrepressible differences in America over the issue of slavery, which in 1861 erupted with the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Bottomline, the Court held three things:
1. No black, not even "free" blacks, could ever become citizens of the United States. They were "beings of an inferior order" not included in the phrase "all men" in the Declaration of Independence nor afforded any rights by the Constitution.
2. The exclusion of slavery from a U.S. territory in the Missouri Compromise was an unconstitutional deprivation of property (Negro slaves) without due process prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. IOW, if the law could deprive a slave owner of his property without "due process" that would constitute a violation of the 5th amendment.
Note: This case is the first appearance in American constitutional law of the concept of "substantive" due process, as opposed to "procedural" due process. "Procedural" due process is nothing more than the procedural hoops the government has to jump through in order to do something to you. "Substantive" due process is about whether or not they can do what they intend to do to you.
It is essential to emphasize that unfortunately, since 1937, the Supremes have never again held that the government may not take your property, as long as government is willing to pay you what it considers to be a fair price and jumps through the procedural hoops it must in order to do so.:(
3. Dred Scott was not free, because Missouri law alone applied after he returned there.
Postscript
Dred Scott was born around 1800. His first master was a man named Peter Blow. Blow was the guy who sold him to Dr. Emerson. Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's son Taylor Blow purchased Scott and his wife and set them free.
Dred Scott died nine months later
The matter was ultimately decided by ratification of the 13, 14 and 15th amendments to the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War which outlawed slavery, established citizenship of former slaves and bestowed upon them all the basic rights possessed by any other American citizen -- of course it was not until a hundred years later after the great civil rights struggles of the 1960's that these rights would become "real."
As an interesting and perhaps ironic aside, Dred Scott is buried in the same St. Louis cemetery and very near US General William T. Sherman, who played a pretty significant role in ending slavery in the United States.;)
http://aycu15.webshots.com/image/11814/2003823510104257864_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003823510104257864)
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/9050/insane7zo8ag.jpg
On this day 150 years ago, in a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision on Sandford v. Scott, a case that intensified national divisions over the issue of slavery.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/88/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Chief Justice Roger Taney of Maryland (a slave state) wrote the opinion
In 1834, Dred Scott, a slave, had been taken to Illinois, a free state, and then Wisconsin territory, where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Scott lived in Wisconsin with his master, Dr. John Emerson, a US Army surgeon, for several years before returning to Missouri, a slave state.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/8339/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz15.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Dred Scott. He died in 1858 about a year after the historic decision which bears his name.
In 1846, after Emerson died, Scott sued Dr Emerson's widow for his freedom on the grounds that he had lived as a resident of a free state and territory. He won his suit in a lower court, but the Missouri supreme court reversed the decision.
Scott appealed the decision, and because his new "master" (to whom Scott had been leased by Mrs. Emerson,) John F.A. Sanford, was a resident of New York, a federal court decided to hear the case on the basis of the diversity of state citizenship represented. Note: The case went down in official Court records as Sandford v. Scott because a clerk misspelled appellee Sanford's name and the error was never corrected.
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3109/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
From the National Archives
After a federal district court decided against Scott, the case came on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was divided along slavery and antislavery lines; although the Southern justices had a majority.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6973/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz16.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Map of pre-1860 US. Slave states in grey, free in pink. Organized territories in green.
During the trial, the antislavery justices used the case to defend the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, which had been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The Southern majority responded by ruling on this day precisely a century and a half ago, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories, or anywhere else for that matter.
Three of the Southern justices also held that blacks who were slaves or whose ancestors were slaves were not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing to bring any case in federal court.
These rulings all confirmed that, in the view of the nation's highest court, under no condition did Dred Scott have the legal right to request his freedom. The Supreme Court's verdict further inflamed the irrepressible differences in America over the issue of slavery, which in 1861 erupted with the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Bottomline, the Court held three things:
1. No black, not even "free" blacks, could ever become citizens of the United States. They were "beings of an inferior order" not included in the phrase "all men" in the Declaration of Independence nor afforded any rights by the Constitution.
2. The exclusion of slavery from a U.S. territory in the Missouri Compromise was an unconstitutional deprivation of property (Negro slaves) without due process prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. IOW, if the law could deprive a slave owner of his property without "due process" that would constitute a violation of the 5th amendment.
Note: This case is the first appearance in American constitutional law of the concept of "substantive" due process, as opposed to "procedural" due process. "Procedural" due process is nothing more than the procedural hoops the government has to jump through in order to do something to you. "Substantive" due process is about whether or not they can do what they intend to do to you.
It is essential to emphasize that unfortunately, since 1937, the Supremes have never again held that the government may not take your property, as long as government is willing to pay you what it considers to be a fair price and jumps through the procedural hoops it must in order to do so.:(
3. Dred Scott was not free, because Missouri law alone applied after he returned there.
Postscript
Dred Scott was born around 1800. His first master was a man named Peter Blow. Blow was the guy who sold him to Dr. Emerson. Blow's sons, childhood friends of Scott, had helped pay Scott's legal fees through the years. After the Supreme Court's decision, the former master's son Taylor Blow purchased Scott and his wife and set them free.
Dred Scott died nine months later
The matter was ultimately decided by ratification of the 13, 14 and 15th amendments to the Constitution in the wake of the Civil War which outlawed slavery, established citizenship of former slaves and bestowed upon them all the basic rights possessed by any other American citizen -- of course it was not until a hundred years later after the great civil rights struggles of the 1960's that these rights would become "real."
As an interesting and perhaps ironic aside, Dred Scott is buried in the same St. Louis cemetery and very near US General William T. Sherman, who played a pretty significant role in ending slavery in the United States.;)
http://aycu15.webshots.com/image/11814/2003823510104257864_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003823510104257864)
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/9050/insane7zo8ag.jpg