Dredd Scott Decision Essay -- Supreme Court Scott v. Sanford

INTRODUCTION United States Supreme Court parapraxis Scott v. Sanford (1857), commonly known as the Dred Scott Case, is probably the most famous fortune of the nineteenth century (with the exception possibly of Marbury v. Madison). It is one of only quatern cases in U. S. history that has ever been overturned by a natural amendment (overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments). It is also, along with Marbury, one of only twain cases prior to the accomplished War that declared a federal honor unconstitutional. This case may have also been one of the most, if not the most, contentious case in American history, due simply to the fact that it dealt an explosive opinion on an issue already prepared to erupt - thralldom. Thus, numerous scholars assert that the Dred Scott case may have almost single-handedly burn the ever growing slavery issue into violence, culminating ultimately into the American Civil War. It effectively brought many abolitionists and anti-slavery proponents, particularly in the North, over the edge. place setting Dred Scott was a slave born in Virginia who early in flavor moved with his owner to St. Louis, atomic number 42. At this time, due to the second Compromise of 1820, Missouri was added as a slave state, nevertheless no state may allow slavery if that state falls above the 36 storey 30 minute latitudinal line. Later, in 1854 low the Kansas-Nebraska Act, states were allowed to vote on whether they will allow slavery or not, known commonly as popular sovereignty. In St. Louis, Scott was sold to an army surgeon named Dr. John Emerson in 1833. A year later, Emerson, on a tour of duty, took Scott, his slave, to Illinois, a melt state. In 1836, Emersons military career then took the both of them to the let loose Wisconsin territory known today as Minnesota. Both of these states, it is important to recognize, where both free states and both above the 36 degree 30 minute line. plot of ground Emerson and Scott were in Wisconsin , Scott married Harriet Robinson, another slave, and ownership of her was subsequently transferred to Emerson. Dr. Emerson himself took a bride charm on a tour of duty in Louisiana, named Eliza Irene Sanford, whose family happened to live in St. Louis. While the slaves (Dred and Harriet) stayed in St. Louis with Eliza and the rest of the family, Dr. Emerson was posted in Florida in 1842, where the Seminole warfare was being fought. He returned a year later but died within... ...dment, which abolished slavery altogether, and the 14th Amendment, which pronounced all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the U.S. regardless of color or previous condition of servitude. Also, this case was the offshoot to employ the substantive due process clause which would be referred to once more later in many other cases. AREAS FOR FURTHER STUDY thither was one specific issue that puzzled me, and I confess I was unable to find any adequate answer to the query. I am referring to how a slave, in this case Dred Scott, was able to marry another slave, Harriet Robinson, in the free territory of Wisconsin, which was well above the 36 degree 30 minute line. Why was she a slave at all? Hadnt the Missouri Compromise, still constitutional in the 1830s, eliminated slavery there? Or possibly she was not technically a slave at all but a free black living in that territory, then wherefore would she marry a slave? And if she did, why would she then fall under the ownership of Dr. Emerson if she had already been freed? This is an area I would suggest further search be employed so that our understanding of the slavery situation in the territories at this time be more fully enhanced.