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White Paper on Dred Scott v. Sandford
This white paper is about a Virginia man born into slavery. For the Supreme Court case
in which he was involved, See Dred Scott v. Sandford.
DRED SCOTT
Dred Scott (1799 – September 17, 1858), was a slave in the United States who sued
unsuccessfully in St. Louis, Missouri for his freedom in the infamous Dred Scott v.
Sandford case of 1857. His case was based on the fact that he and his wife Harriet
Scott were slaves, but he followed his master Dr. John Emerson and had lived in states
and territories where slavery was illegal according to the state laws and the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota (which was then part of the
Wisconsin Territory). The United States Supreme Court ruled seven to two against
Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship
in the United States, and that therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under
diversity of citizenship rules. Moreover, Scott's temporary residence outside Missouri did
not affect his emancipation under the Missouri Compromise, since reaching that result
would deprive Scott's owner of his property.
OVERVIEW
The case raised the issue of a black slave who lived in a free state. Congress had not
asserted whether slaves were free once they set foot upon Northern soil. The ruling
arguably overturned the Missouri Compromise as, based on the Court‘s logic, any
attempt at regulating slavery in the Federal Territories deprived a white slave owner of
his property without due process. This factor upset the Northern Republicans and
further split Northern and Southern relations, exacerbating violent sentiments leading up
to the Civil War.
Scott traveled with his master Dr. John Emerson, who was in the army and often
transferred. Scott's extended stay with his master in Illinois, a free state, gave him the
legal standing to make a claim for freedom, as did his extended stay at Fort Snelling in
the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was also prohibited. But Scott never made the
claim while living in the free lands—perhaps because he was unaware of his rights at
the time, or because he was fearful of possible repercussions. After two years, the army
transferred Emerson to territory where slavery was legal: first to St. Louis, Missouri,
then to Louisiana. In just over a year, the recently married Emerson summoned his
slave couple. Instead of staying in the free territory of Wisconsin, or going to the free
state of Illinois, the two traveled nearly 2000 km, apparently unaccompanied, down the
Mississippi River to meet their master. Only after Emerson's death in 1843, when
Emerson's widow hired out Scott to an army captain, did Scott seek freedom for himself
and his wife. First he offered to buy his freedom from Emerson's widow, Irene
Emerson—then living in St. Louis—for $300. The offer was refused, leaving Scott to
seek freedom through the courts.
LIFE
Dred Scott was born in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1799 as property of the Peter
Blow family. It appears that Scott was originally named Sam and had an older brother
named Dred. However, when the brother died as a young man, Scott chose to use his
name. The Blow family settled near Huntsville, Alabama, where they unsuccessfully
tried farming.
In 1830 the Blow family took Scott with them when they relocated to St. Louis, Missouri.
They sold Scott to John Emerson, a doctor serving in the United States Army. Scott
traveled with Dr. Emerson as he worked throughout Illinois and the Wisconsin
Territories, where the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery.
In 1836 Dred Scott met a teen-aged slave named Harriet Robinson. Her owner was
Major Lawrence Taliaferro, an Indian man known for respecting the rights of all people.
He allowed them to get married and transferred his ownership of Harriet to Dr. Emerson
so that the couple could stay together. In 1838, Harriet gave birth to their first daughter.
They named her Eliza. The couple also had two sons; however, they both died in their
infancy. Two years after their first daughter arrived, another was born and they named
her Lizzie.
Emerson met and married Irene Sanford.[1] They returned to Missouri in 1842. John
Emerson died the following year, and John F. A. Sanford, brother of the widow, became
executor of the Emerson estate.
In 1846, having failed to attain his freedom, Scott filed suit and went to trial in 1847 in a
state courthouse in St. Louis. Scott lost the first trial, but the presiding judge granted a
second trial because hearsay evidence had been introduced. Three years later, in 1850,
a jury decided that Scott and his wife should be freed. Irene Emerson appealed.
In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, saying, ―Times
now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made.‖ The
Scotts were returned to their master.
With the aid of new lawyers (including Montgomery Blair), the Scotts sued again in
federal court. They lost and appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott
v. Sandford. (His name is spelled ‗Sandford‘ in the court decision due to a clerical error.)
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion, stating
that:
Any person descended from Africans, whether slave or free, is not a citizen of the
United States, according to the Declaration of Independence.
The Ordinance of 1787 could not confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest
Territory to non-white people.
The provisions of the Act of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise, were voided as
a legislative act because the act exceeded the powers of Congress, insofar as it
attempted to exclude slavery and impart freedom and citizenship to Black people in the
northern part of the Louisiana cession.[2]
In effect, the Court ruled that slaves had no claim to freedom. They were property and
not citizens, and could not bring suit in federal court. Since slaves were private
property, the federal government could not revoke a white slave owner‘s right to own a
slave based on where he lived, thus nullifying the essence of the Missouri Compromise.
Taney, speaking for the majority, also ruled that since Scott was considered private
property, he was subject to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution which
prohibits taking property from its owner ―without due process.‖
GRAVESITE
After the ruling, with Sanford by now in an insane asylum, Scott was returned as
property to Emerson‘s widow. However, in 1850, Emerson had remarried to an
abolitionist, Calvin C. Chaffee, who shortly thereafter was elected to Congress. In a
bizarre turn of events, Chaffee was apparently unaware that his wife owned arguably
the most prominent slave in America until a month before the Supreme Court decision.
Too late to intervene, the severely criticized Chaffee proceeded to have Emerson return
Scott to his original owners, the Blow family. As Missouri residents, they could
emancipate him.
Scott was formally freed by Taylor Blow on May 26, 1857 and worked as a porter in St.
Louis for less than nine months before he died from tuberculosis in September 1858. He
was survived by his wife and his daughter Eliza Scott (born 1838). Dred Scott was
interred in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. It is a local tradition to place Lincoln
pennies on top of his gravestone.[3] Harriet Scott was long thought to be buried near
her husband, but it was recently proven that she was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in
Hillsdale, Missouri. She outlived her husband by 18 years, dying on June 17, 1876.[4]
In 1997, Dred and Harriet Scott were inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.