Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1799. In 1830, Scott and his master moved to Missouri, which was a slave state. Four years later, a surgeon in the U.S. army named Dr. John Emerson bough Scott and moved him to the free state of Illinois. In 1836, Scott and Emerson moved to the Wisconsin Terriory. In 1838, Emerson moved back to Missouri where he would die in 1843. In his will, Emerson left all his possessions including Scott to his widow. In 1846, Scott asked Mrs. Emerson if he could work for his freedom. According to Scott she refused.
Scott sued Mrs. Emerson and argued that he was being held illegally because he had become a free man as soon as he had lived in a free state. He claimed that he was taken to a slave state against his will. Many slaves had sued their owners in this way and won their freedom in the past. In 1847, Emerson won in the Missouri Circuit Court because Scott's lawyers failed to prove that she was holding Scott as a slave. Scott's lawyers successfully argued for a new trial.
Dred Scott became the most famous slave in the United States and his case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court. The issue of Scott's freedom became overshadowed by the question of whether the national government could pass a law regarding slavery. Scott's lawyers based their argument on the fact that since Scott had been living in territory that the federal government had declared slave free, he was no longer a slave.
Many people in the South felt that the U.S. government had no right to declare a law about slavery in a territory but the people of that territory had the right to do that. Since Scott was legally property, the U.S. government had no right to take him from his owners. Some lawyers felt that Scott had no legal right to a trial since he was not a citizen of the United States.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1857 was Roger Taney. Taney was a slave holder from Maryland that had been serving as Chief Justice since 1837. Taney felt that this was an opportunity to put to rest the issue of slavery. He was faced with three main questions to answer: 1.) Is Dred Scott free? 2.) Can a former slave or any African-American become a U.S. citizen?
and finally, 3.) Does the Federal Government have the authority to declare laws about slavery.
Taney delivered the decision himself to the lawyers for both sides. The Supreme Court declared that Dred Scott had no legitimate claim to his freedom and that he was to be returned to his owners. According to the Supreme Court the U.S. government had no authority to declare any laws on slavey (it was not mentioned in the Constitution). On the issue of whether a descendent of a slave could ever become a citizen or not, the court said "the language used in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution shows that neither the class of persons imported as slaves nor their descendants free or not...were acknowledged as part of the people, nor intended to be included in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution."
With a few simple words, Roger Taney was able to deny citizenship to hundreds of thousands of free African Americans and further divide the nation on the issue of slavery. Since only states were allowed to pass laws on the issue of slavery, the Missouri Compromise was now considered UnConstitutional. Slavery could technically be able to spread in parts of the nation where it had once been forbidden. Many Northern politicians saw this as another example of the South being given special privileges.
Dred Scott would eventually be granted freedom by a different owner. He died in St. Louis after working as a hotel porter. Roger Taney would become one of the most reviled Justices ever to serve in the Supreme Court. He would remain in office until his death in 1864. Congress refused to have a statue of him paced in the Supreme Court building because of his role in the Dred Scott case.
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