The Decision that Led to Civil War
Four years before the Civil War began, the first shots were fired -- not on a battlefield, but in the Supreme Court. This occurred in 1857, when the Court considered a crucial question: should a slave living in a free state be considered free
The Court’s answer to this question was no, and it sent shock waves through every state, slave and free alike. According to the ruling, which became known as the Dred Scott decision, a slave would always be regarded as property, no matter where he or she happened to be.
When the case began, Virginia-born Dred Scott had spent all of his fifty-one years in slavery. He had been owned by a St. Louis family, which had sold him to a local army surgeon. The doctor then took Scott from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and later to the free territory of Wisconsin. Scott was then taken back to Missouri by his owner, who died there.
Automatically. the surgeon’s widow inherited Scott. But when his former St. Louis owners learned what had happened, they launched a legal battle to have Scott and slaves like him declared free. They argued that he had spent so much time in free territory that he should now be free himself. Scott, who could neither read nor write, had to sign the legal papers with an X.
The case was heard first in 1846 by a state court in Missouri, which granted Scott his . The victory was short-lived, however, as the ruling was soon overturned by a higher court. Not until 1857 was the U.S. Supreme Court ready to rule on his case.
The Chief Justice at the time was Roger Brooke Taney. a Maryland native in his eighties whose parents had owned slaves of their own. A high-ranking public official since the days of Andrew Jackson, Taney had been Chief Justice for more than twenty years. Many critics thought him far too old and backward to continue serving.
Nonetheless, he still had great influence on his fellow justices. When Taney’s Court ruled on Dred Scott’s case, its judgment was that he remained a slave. Taney went beyond Scott’s case to rule that no black descendant of any slave could ever be a U. S. citizen and declared that Congress had no right to pass laws to curtail (截断) the spread of slavery in federal territories.
Public reaction was swift and strong. Southerners expressed delight with the decision, claiming that it affirmed once and for all their right to keep slaves. Northerners expressed outrage, charging that the ruling was unjust and inhumane.
Ironically, Scott was freed later in 1857 when the army surgeon’s widow married a congressman who opposed slavery. Scott died six months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, a free man.
It might be said that Dred Scott was used by those who opposed slavery to test how far the legal system would go to keep people in bondage (). It is true that Scott probably understood little about the great impact of his case, but thanks in part to his quiet patience, opposition to slavery grew.
The Decision that Led to Civil WarScott’s ruled by a state court in Missouri was supported by a higher court, but overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.