According to many legal scholars, Dred Scott v. Sanford is the Supreme Court case that produced the worst decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. It’s no wonder that the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution later overturned this case’s decision ("Dred Scott v. Sanford."). This whole situation began in 1846, when a slave named Dred Scott and his wife sued for their freedom. What followed was an 11 year struggle that resulted in a very well-known decision that was disliked by many people. The Supreme Court not only ruled that Americans of African descent weren’t citizens, but that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional as well. This Supreme Court case took place when tensions were high about the topic of slavery, and some …show more content…
Scott then filed another lawsuit “in a federal circuit court claiming damages against Sanford’s brother, John F.A. Sanford, for Sanford’s alleged physical abuse against him” (McBride). The jury of this trial ruled that Scott could not sue in a federal court, because he was a slave under Missouri law. Next, Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1856. The Court’s decision was made in 1857. Dred Scott and John Sanford had no idea at this time that their lawsuit would have such a huge impact on United States history. The conflict that started in Missouri in 1846, and lasted until 1857, has become a very significant Supreme Court case. The only reason it is so important today is because the two men involved both strongly disagreed with each other, and were not content with the decisions given to them. There were obviously other factors playing into it, such as physical abuse, and not wanting to pay back money. Overall, the reason it went all the way to the Supreme Court is probably because slavery and African American rights were being questioned, and the Supreme Court wanted “to end the slavery question once and for all” ("Dred Scott v. Sandford."). This meant that many people were questioning it, including the lower courts, so the highest court had to answer the question properly and …show more content…
Congress does indeed have the right to determine national citizenship, and the United States should definitely try its hardest to protect people’s personal property. But, also, the U.S. Supreme Court should not have counted African people as property. They should not have been slaves in the first place, but that was not the point of this court case. The Supreme Court was filled with many pro-slavery people, so this explains why this specific decision was mae. Based on today’s standards, this is the worst decision the Supreme Court case had ever made. The men who made the decision were trying to please their country and stop the tension that many people felt over the topic of slavery, but they ultimately failed. It’s unfortunate that African people were at one time “property,” but thankfully the 13th and 14th amendments overturned this decision. This fact shows the general discontent people had with the decision, because they even passed amendments to counteract
questions arise: 1st.[sic] Was [Scott], together with his family, free in Missouri by reason of his stay in the territory of the United States hereinbefore mentioned? And 2d[sic], If they were not, is Scott himself free by reason of his removal to Rock Island, in the state of Illinois...?" Both of these questions led to an even greater and more central question: "Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and priveledges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen?" (i.e. does Scott, having been a slave, have the constitutional right to sue?)
Jackson vs. Birmingham Board of Education (2005) is a more recent case that still fights against one of history?s most common topics; equal rights. This will always stand as one of the greatest problem factors the world will face until eternity. These issues date back for years and years. This case was brought to the Supreme Court in 2004 for a well-known topic of sexual discrimination. It helped to define the importance of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
In 1846, African slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that he resided in the free states of Illinois and the Wisconsin/Minnesota territory to serve his owner. In 1854, Scott appealed his case to the Supreme Court, seeking to reverse the District court’s decision declaring him still a slave. In 1856, the case began, however the freedom of Dred Scott was not the only issue the court addressed, they also had to decide can blacks be citizens, the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and can Congress prohibit slavery in federal territories. A year later the Supreme Court handed down its decision, “they dismissed the case of due to lack of
The Dred Scott decision involved two slaves, Dred Scott and his wife, who originated from one of the recognized slave states, Missouri, but they were relocated to settle in Wisconsin, a state where slavery was prohibited. In 1846, Scott filed a lawsuit and “sued for his freedom on the grounds that his residence in a free state and a free territory had made him free.” In 1854, Scott’s “case ultimately went to the Supreme Court.” By landing in the Supreme Court, the justices ruled seven to two against the Dred Scott and his wife for multiple reasons. One main reason that the court specified was that whether African Americans are enslaved or not, they were never recognized as citizens of the United States. Therefore, the justices believed that the case should not have been heard or discussed in the Supreme Court to begin with. The second reason was that regardless of any African American being transferred to a free state, does not necessarily change their social status. Thirdly, the Supreme Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a compromise that outlawed slavery north of the 36˚30’ latitude line, is unconstitutional because the Congress declared that they had “no power to ban slavery from any territory.” The decision was critical due to increasing the North population’s unease, and their concern that the South will begin to transport slaves to freed states, which will
Around the 1850’s, tension between the Northern states and the Southern states was rising. The issue of slavery was a conflict that greatly contributed to this tension. The Northern and Southern people had very different views on slavery. Most of the Northern people thought that slavery was wrong, while the Southern people thought that slavery was justified. During this time, a court case filed by a black slave against his white slave master occurred and it widened the gap between them even more. The idea of a black man suing for his freedom was ridiculous to most of the Southern people. My second paragraph is about Dred Scott’s life. It will mostly be about his life before the case. The third paragraph will be information about the case in court. It will include many facts from the trials. The fourth paragraph will tell of the United States Supreme Court decision and its effects. It will also include people’s reactions to the final decision.
Dred Scott vs. Sandford was a very influential case during the mid-1800s. The case took place in 1857; however, the events leading up to it began in 1833. Dr. John Emerson had bo...
Lastly, Dred Scott Case with the United States Supreme court fought freedom for the slaves in the American Legal System. In 1857, the court 's decision denied his plea and determined that no Negro,a term used to portray anybody that was African blood, was or could ever be a citizen. This decision also the reason for the Missouri Compromise, which set restrictions on slavery in certain U.S territories. The Northerners were outraged and the Dred Scott case became a reason to elect president Abraham Lincoln in 1860
Dred Scott was a slave. His master was an army surgeon who was based in Missouri. In the early 1830's and 1840's his master and him traveled to Illinois and the Wisconsin territory. It was in 1846 that Scott sued his master's widow for freedom. His argument was that the state of ...
These slave “fathers” killed, and tortured their “children”, just like the wolf found a way to justify, eating the newborn lamb, undeterred by its innocence. Slaves face further mistreatment through the three-fifths compromise, in which three in every five slaves count as citizens towards the population of the state; the aforementioned compromise, allowed southerners to disregard the slave’s human rights, in a legal sense. In the Dred Scott case, a famous case in which a slave sued for his freedom, Chief Justice Roger Taney declared: “Dred Scott had no legal standing in court because blacks could not be citizens of the United States.” In the years leading up to the war an abolitionist’s movement was starting in the north that openly spoke out against slavery, but it was still not the popular idea. While most northerners were anti-slavery, they still had issue with race, making them more in favor of slavery not spreading to northern
In 1971 in Mobile County Alabama the School Board created a state statute that set aside time at the beginning of each day for silent ’meditation’ (statute 6-1-20), and in 1981 they added another statute 16-1-20.1 which set aside a minute for ‘silent prayer’ as well. In addition to these, in 1982 the Mobile County School Board enacted statute 16-1-20.2, which specified a prayer that teachers could lead ‘willing’ students in “From henceforth, any teacher or professor in any public educational institution within the State of Alabama, recognizing that the Lord God is one, at the beginning of any homeroom or any class, may pray, may lead willing students in prayer, or may lead the willing students in the following prayer to God… “ (Jaffree By and Through Jaffree v. James). Ishmael Jaffree was the father of three students, Jamael Aakki Jaffree, Makeba Green, and Chioke Saleem Jaffree, who attended a school in Mobile County Alabama. Jaffree complained that his children had been pressured into participating in religious activities by their teachers and their peers, and that he had requested that these activities stopped. When the school did nothing about Jaffree’s complaints he filed an official complaint with the Mobile County School Board through the United States District Courts. The original complaint never mentioned the three state statutes that involved school prayer. However, on June 4, 1982 Jaffree changed his complaint. He now wanted to challenge the constitutionality of statutes 16-1-20, 16-1-20.1 and 16-1-20.2, and motioned for a preliminary injunction. The argument against these state laws was that they were an infringement of the Establishment Clause within the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states that Congr...
Another similar case was the Dred Scott Decision. Dred Scott, being a black man during the 1820's, was yet again considered inferior to bring his case to the court. From a reader's point of view, Dred Scott's case was very legit. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 made Scott a free man. All of the blacks going through the 35'36 altitude/latitude line were said to be free men. When Dred Scott entered Illinois, he entered thinking he was a free man, until his owner assaulted him upon the return. Dred Scott did his best to bring not one but three assault cases to the court against his "owner", John F. A. Sanford; however, the court dismissed him as inferior to take any participation or even demand a fair trial. The court also called upon the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional because of deprivation of personal property, which in this case was Dred Scott - a property of John Sanford. Eventually the sons of Sanford purchased Scott and his wife, and set them free. Scott died just a year after that.
In Conclusion, the Dred Scott Decision took a long drawn out journey through the court system to be literally, and figuratively dismissed. It addressed a subject, which was not popular, freedom for slaves, and went through several courts, without receiving any merit. While it is not a well-known case, it is on point as to the conflicts over slavery, and how they led to the Civil War. It has been considered the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court, and for good reason. 84
In the years leading to the Civil War, there were many events that sparked wide spread controversy and severely divided the nation. Dred Scott an African American slave whose owner brought him from a slave state to a state that outlawed slavery where he attempted to sue for his freedom. In the year 1854, a mere 6 years before the start of the war, the Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford handed down one of its most controversial rulings to date. Known as the Dred Scott Decision, the Supreme Court lead by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issued a 7 to 2 decision, rendered that Africans whether they were free or slaves were not citizens and that they had no legality to sue in Federal court.
Speaking on my behalf why don’t so called African Americans resemble Africans from Africa? The African American is known as an artificial construct. Believe it or not African Americans are the indigenous to the Americans. This includes North America, South America and its surrounding islands. According, to the Dred Scott vs. Sanford in (1857) exemplifies that if your ancestors were black and were imported into the U.S. and sold as slaves. Then they would be considering not being a citizenship to America. In other words African Americans only are citizens in name but not law. For those who still boastfully claim that the 14th amendment made them citizens then how do you explain the Naturalization Act in (1870). That came afterwards what was the purpose of that act. Altogether growing up all my life all I ever heard was all blacks believed that their ancestors were slaves, truth is just because prejudice went on during slavery times and racism that does not mean that all of our ancestors were slaves. What do I mean by all of this we’ll Ehrenreich emphasizes that she knows exactly what her ancestors were doing 2,000 years ago. Remember the story in the bible where God ask Abraham to count the stars in the sky, well Abraham try and did not succeed. No man earth can count how many stars are in the sky no matter how much knowledge they may have with that being said this is why
...ers mobilized in 1860 behind moderate Abraham Lincoln because he was most likely to carry the doubtful western states. In 1857, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ended the Congressional compromise for Popular Sovereignty in Kansas. According to the court, slavery in the territories was a property right of any settler, regardless of the majority there. Chief Justice Taney's decision said that slaves were, "...so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The decision overturned the Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery in territory north of the 36°30' parallel.