The Dred Scott Decision

Roger Taney was the chief justice from 1836- 1864. He made the ruling for the Dred Scott case. The ruling that sent northerns into a blaze and led southern 's to rejoice. Dred Scott was a slave, who was taken to a free territory. Taney ruled that slaves were property and that they didn’t have the right to sue as it says in document number 9.

Plessy vs Ferguson was a controversial case which came up with the phrase "separate but equal. " The case started when Louisiana tried to establish a law that would segregate blacks and white on trains like many states had done. However the black community in New Orleans did not like it however the state legislature approved the law even though there were blacks in the legislature. In 1892 a man named Homer Plessy sat in the white compartment of a train and was kicked off the train by the conductor. Later, lawyer named Albion Tourgee argued that the law was unconstitutional and took it to Supreme Court where the Supreme Court rejected it and ruled in the favor of the law.

The decision was finally reached in 1857, this lead the states to decide the issue of slavery with majority rule, although slaves were not counted as citizens. (Events and Decision Leading to Civil War,

Black abolitionists wanted whites to see blacks as equal and fellow human beings, they also made the people who thought white supremacy was a good thing look like complete idiots when they countered them in intellectual arguments. The greatest speech about American freedom and American slavery was presented by Frederick Douglass in 1852, in Rochester, New York. He conveyed that to a slave, the celebration of the Fourth of July proves how hypocritical we are as a nation. We declare our commitment to liberty and yet everyday we perform “practices more shocking and bloody” than any other nation.

Imagine a being in line to vote for non-slavery in the newly established state, Kansas, right before the voting house became overfilled with southern voters voting on slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska act allowed the people of the Kansas and the Nebraska Territories to vote on whether the state is a non-slave or a slave state. The Kansas Nebraska act should have never happened because it overturned the Missouri compromise, violence broke out in kansas, and southern voters illegally voted in the kansas voting. One of the main reason why the Kansas-Nebraska act should have never happened is because it overturned the Missouri Compromise which was made official in 1820. For example, “To win southern support, Douglas proposed that slavery in the new

Scott’s case, gaining momentum, ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court, where there a racist idiot of a judge ruled that because African Americans are not citizens they are therefore unable to sue in court. Though Scott’s case was proven unsuccessful, it did bring a lot of awareness to the issue of slavery. While some were in favor of the final outcome, others were driven more strongly in their opposition of slavery and believed it needed to be put to an

These court cases are a big impact to African American rights and their lives. Dred Scott v. Sanford, Dred Scott and his slave owner went to Illinois (which is a free state) then came to Missouri (which is a Slave state) but unfortunately the slave owner died, Dred Scott thought since he just came from a free state he can get freedom so he sued and his case went up 2 the Supreme Court which he loss cause a slave that 's below a regular person can 't sue the government and stayed a slave. The importance of this case is that slaves are not citizen and can 't sue the government and congress had a lack of power ban slavery in U.S. Territories As to the second case Shelley bought a house in Missouri but in that neighborhood there was a there was a agreement not all has sign to keep the colored away from the neighborhood so some of the neighbors were angry and wanted to kick Shelly out of the neighborhood so she sued the head of the neighborhood and won the case because the neighbors thought her there violated he 14th amendment which didn 't and was able to live in her house. The importance of this case was the case didn 't violate the 14th amendment and it changed for black people to buy a house

Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri, but from 1833-1843, he lived in places where slavery was illegal. When Scott returned to Missouri, he believed that because he lived in free territory, he was a free man. He sued without success in Missouri courts. Scott’s master said that Dred Scott couldn’t be a citizen because of Article III of the Constitution. In the end, Dred Scott lost and had to return to slavery.

Ferguson was a case of the Supreme Court in 1892 after passenger Homer Plessy traveled on the Louisiana railroad and refused to sit in a car for blacks only. Homer Plessy was brought before Judge John H. Ferguson to a Criminal Court in New Orleans to be trailed for refusing to follow the state law of Louisiana “separate but equal.” Such conflict challenged the violation of the 13th and 14th amendment where they ensure equality for recently emancipated slaves. They stated, “Separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal.” “In the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either.”

The first reason is that the 5th amendment states, “No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” Taking the Native Americans land with the Indian Removal Act violates one of the amendments. The Native Americans did have a trial but nothing was done of it. Another reason the Indian Removal Act was unjust was because the Supreme Court said so! In the 1832 case Worcester vs. Georgia the court ruled the Cherokee Nation as being sovereign.

In 1847 Dred Scott sued his slave owners widow for his freedom. Scott’s argument was that since he had previously been a residence of the free state of Illinois he was a free man. Scott eventually lost the case when, in 1857, it was brought to the Supreme Court who ruled in a 7-2 majority against Scott. The court stated that due to the fact that Scott was of African descent he could not be an American citizen, and therefore not sue in federal courts. The court also ruled that the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional, effectively allowing slavery in all states and territories.

The 15th Amendment (Amendment XV), which gave African-American men the right to vote, was inserted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although the amendment was passed in the late 1870s, many racist practices were used to oppose African-Americans from voting, especially in the Southern States like Georgia and Alabama. After many years of racism, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aimed to overthrow legal barricades at the state and local levels that deny African-Americans their right to vote. In the

On December 24th 1851 court was adjourned until March 15th 1852. Dred Scott did not deny that the case had been heard before; he did however state the decisions were never based on Missouri law. In Dred Scott’s conclusion he stated, “slavery was the will of God and times now are not what they were when former decisions on the subject were made”. Basically Scott knew racial and sectional prejudices played a role in the decision. Justice Hamilton Gamble agreed with Dred Scott that times have changed but disagreed that any principles had changed.

For example, in the cartoon is state “no, he didn’t this fight, called “the battle of Black Jack, is consider by some historians the first battle of the civil war. This demonstrate that the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case affected Kansas, which was becoming a tuning place of battles and fights between pro-slavery and anti-slavery people. In conclusion, Kansas, after the declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, became a place of tension and conflict between people from Kansas who were against of slavery, and people from others states that were in favor of slavery and wanted slavery in order to increase their wealth as it was demonstrated in the cartoon “Bleeding Kansas”. Finally, the Dred Scott Decision was of great importance to the United States because it let to the end of slavery in the United

The Dred Scott vs. Sanford Supreme Court case has gone down in history as one of the most notorious cases and recognized as driving the country closer to civil war. The case became controversial in 1833, because Dr. John Emerson, purchased Dred Scott, and moved to the Wisconsin Territory. From the Missouri Compromise, slavery was banned in the Wisconsin Territory, therefore, making Scott a free man, right? After living there for a number of years Emerson moved to St. Louis and died in 1843 leaving Eliza Irene Sanford, Emerson’s wife, the owner of Scott and his family. When Scott asked for freedom, Stanford declined which lead to Scott suing the state court, where he won and was acknowledged as a free man.