The Missouri Compromise: Dred Scott's Fight For Freedom

Republicans now viewed the Court as controlled by the Slave Power. The Southern Democrats are convinced that they could not trust their party’s most popular northern leader. The reputation of the Supreme Court sank to the lowest level in all of American history. The Dread Scott decision contradicted the Missouri compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 because it said that Congress possessed no power under the Constitution

When congress was siding more with free states, Southern Leader, John C. Calhoun, created the “doctrine of nullification” which states that “a state has the constitutional right to nullify a national law” (73). This action almost lead to war when South Carolina invoked this doctrine and Andrew Jackson took military action to keep the union in tact. Although both sides were able to reach a compromise, a civil war will take place 30 years from then. Another spike in tensions was the Dred Scott decision (1857). A slave named Dred Scott argued that since his master died in a free state, and the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a federal law, made slavery in a free state illegal, he was a free man.

The Missouri Supreme Court was ready to hear the case on April 3rd 1848, judge William Scott issued a unanimous decision on June 30th 1848 that “no final judgment upon which a writ of error can only lie”. The case was still just a suit for freedom. On March 17th 1848 Mrs. Emerson had the sheriff of St. Louis County take charge of the Scotts. He hired them out and maintained the wages until the trial was over; they were under his custody until March 1857.

Scottsboro Trial Two young women is all it takes to create one of the most tragic epoch's of African-American history after the abolishment of slavery. When Victoria Price, and Ruby Bates decide to ride the rails to look for some incentive in their lives, they witness an opportunity to ruin nine young black boy's life. A fight broke out after a gang of white boys agitated, and tried to force a gang of black boys to jump off a train.

Dred Scott was taken back into slavery and accused Sandford because Scott was in a free states and claimed that he was in the free state long enough to be a free slave. The Supreme court ruled against Dred Scott, this decision affected blacks preventing them to become citizens and an giving them the right to appeal to a jury and making it harder for a slave to escape because the free states didn’t make a runaway slave a free slave. The case also affected popular sovereignty. Where states got to choose if they were to be a free states or a slave

Scott then proceeded to sue John Emerson and his estate. The estates were represented under John Sanford. Upon the closing of this case the court ruled in favor of Mr. Sanford, because they believed that during this time slaves were not considered to be a citizen of the United States. Dred Scott even stated in his complaint that the fifth amendment can also serve as his defense because it protected citizen against the people abusing their power.

Stephen Douglas, an advocate of popular sovereignty, and Abraham Lincoln, a Republican candidate, were both running to represent Illinois in the United States Senate. These two men met in a sequence of seven debates before they battled for office of presidency in the election of 1858. Slavery eventually became the main issue discussed repeatedly in each of the debates, due to the Mexican War adding new territories left to be assessed as free soil or not. During this time, the Compromise of 1850 was a temporary fix to the sectional issues for the states that made the decision to participate in the extension of slavery. However, the Missouri Compromise of 1854 brought the issue back up again.

The United States was a turbulent and politically divided place in 1850’s and leading up the Civil War. The Kansas Territory exemplified the treacherous nature of the U.S. experiencing all the issues that Congress tried to ignore in order to hold together the Union. Nicole Etcheson details the events in her book Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era. Most people used the name Bleeding Kansas to describe the violent atmosphere of the territory. The violence stemmed from Stephen A. Douglas’s idea of popular sovereignty that is allowing the people to vote on the admission of slavery into the state’s constitution.

For Lincoln, one of these main occurrences that influenced him was the Dred Scott decision handed down by Justice Roger B. Taney. In his final decision, Taney concluded that no African-American could truly become an American citizen. This decision was in opposition to the beliefs of a large section of the American populous, Lincoln and his Republican party included. Lincoln’s ideals as a Republican were fighting to stop the spread of slavery, not the abolishment of the institution as a whole. Lincoln epitomizes this when he wrote “peaceful extinction of slavery…” this meant Lincoln did not necessarily see the need behind the ending of slavery completely rather then its complete existence being

In this case, Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) Dred Scott was an African American slave at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court pivotal Dred Scott decision of (1857). Dred Scott was born in 1799 in Southampton county, Virginia, U.S. and he died September 17, 1858, in St. Louis, Missouri. The ruling rejected Scottś for emancipation which he based on his temporary residence in a free state and territory, in which slavery was prohibited, and struck down the Missouri Compromise (1820), thereby making slavery legal in all U.S. territories. Dred Scott was born in the United States as a slave.

Dred Scott was born was a slave in the state of Virginia and was owned by Peter Blow, who died in 1832. Scott only had two masters after Blow’s death; one lived in Wisconsin and later Illinois, both of which prohibited slavery, yet, Scott didn’t petition for freedom. Instead he met his wife Harriet. The two met their new master in Louisiana, who did not grant them freedom, so Scott looked for legal action to escape his slavery. Over a period of seven years, he went through trial and retrial until he was denied his final freedom in 1854.

The end result of the Dred Scott decision was Chief Justice Roger Taney 's decision that Congress did not possess the jurisdiction to stop slavery from spreading into other territories, even if they were considered free. Even worse, any free Black could now be allowably forced into slavery. Being forced into slavery was also seen as being beneficial to the free Blacks. Instead of reaching a decision as President Buchanan had hoped, it had started a rapid expansion of the conflict. This rapid expansion over the issue of slavery eventually led to the Civil War.

Slavery was a big issue in the 1800s. It divided the country into an argument between having slavery or not having slavery. It also made a conflict between the north and south and they could not agree on it. Some wanted to keep it, some wanted to get rid of it. The states would argue and they could not come up with a compromise.

There were many important Compromises between the years of 1820 and 1860, some that worked completely and some that didn’t. In the early nineteenth century, people were good at compromising and making things work for everyone. How long did perfect compromising actually last? Slavery began to split the nation apart, causing compromising to become hard to do.

Dred Scott was a slave who attempted to gain his freedom. Scott was owned by a man for the early part of his life, and then was sold to a new man once his original owner died (Tindall 672). He followed his new owner around the country, and lived in several free states (Tindall 672). Once his second owner died, Scott filed for his freedom (Tindall 672). After going through a rigorous process, the court finally decided that Scott had no grounds for his case because he was not actually a citizen (Tindall 672).