Dred Scott v. Sandford

Dred Scott v. Sandford
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 11–14, 1856
Reargued December 15–18, 1856
Decided March 6, 1857
Full case nameDred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford[a]
Citations60 U.S. 393 (more)
19 How. 393; 15 L. Ed. 691; 1856 WL 8721; 1856 U.S. LEXIS 472
DecisionOpinion
Case history
PriorJudgment for defendant, C.C.D. Mo.
Holding
Judgment reversed and suit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
  1. Persons of African descent cannot be and were never intended to be citizens under the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiff is without standing to file a suit.
  2. The Property Clause is applicable only to lands possessed at the time of the Constitution's ratification (1787). As such, Congress cannot ban slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.
  3. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from freeing slaves brought into federal territories.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney
Associate Justices
John McLean · James M. Wayne
John Catron · Peter V. Daniel
Samuel Nelson · Robert C. Grier
Benjamin R. Curtis · John A. Campbell
Case opinions
MajorityTaney, joined by Wayne, Catron, Daniel, Nelson, Grier, Campbell
ConcurrenceWayne
ConcurrenceCatron
ConcurrenceDaniel
ConcurrenceNelson, joined by Grier
ConcurrenceGrier
ConcurrenceCampbell
DissentMcLean
DissentCurtis
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. V; U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 2; Missouri Compromise
Superseded by
U.S. Const. amends. XIII, XIV, XV

Dred Scott v. Sandford,[a] 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens.[2][3] The decision is widely considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, poor legal reasoning, and crucial role in the start of the American Civil War four years later.[4][5][6] Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said that it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions". A future chief justice, Charles Evans Hughes, called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound".[7]

The decision involved the case of Dred Scott, an enslaved black man whose owners had taken him from Missouri, a slave-holding state, into Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal. When his owners later brought him back to Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom and claimed that because he had been taken into "free" U.S. territory, he had automatically been freed and was legally no longer a slave. Scott sued first in Missouri state court, which ruled that he was still a slave under its law. He then sued in U.S. federal court, which ruled against him by deciding that it had to apply Missouri law to the case. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision against Scott. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the Court ruled that people of African descent "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States"; more specifically, that African Americans were not entitled to "full liberty of speech ... to hold public meetings ... and to keep and carry arms" along with other constitutionally protected rights and privileges.[8] Taney supported his ruling with an extended survey of American state and local laws from the time of the Constitution's drafting in 1787 that purported to show that a "perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery". Because the Court ruled that Scott was not an American citizen, he was also not a citizen of any state and, accordingly, could never establish the "diversity of citizenship" that Article III of the U.S. Constitution requires for a U.S. federal court to be able to exercise jurisdiction over a case.[2] After ruling on those issues surrounding Scott, Taney struck down the Missouri Compromise because, by prohibiting slavery in U.S. territories north of the 36°30′ parallel, it interfered with slave owners' property rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Although Taney and several other justices hoped the decision would settle the slavery controversy, which was increasingly dividing the American public, the decision only exacerbated interstate tension.[9] Taney's majority opinion suited the slaveholding states, but was intensely decried in all the other states.[3] The decision inflamed the national debate over slavery and deepened the divide that led ultimately to the American Civil War. In 1865, after the Union's victory, the Court's ruling in Dred Scott was superseded by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, whose first section guaranteed citizenship for "[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".

Historians agree that the Court decision was a major disaster for the nation as it dramatically inflamed tensions leading to the Civil War.[10][11][12] The ruling is widely considered a blatant act of judicial activism[13] with the intent of bringing finality to the territorial crisis resulting from the Louisiana Purchase by creating a constitutional right to own slaves anywhere in the country while permanently disenfranchising all people of African descent.[14] The court's decision to overturn the Missouri Compromise, which had already been replaced with the Kansas–Nebraska Act and thus was a legally moot issue, is cited as proof of this because the latter act was determined by the due process of popular sovereignty, and thus could not be overturned the same way as the Missouri Compromise.[15] During the United States election of 1860, Republicans rejected the ruling as being corrupted by partisanship and non-binding because the court had no jurisdiction. Their presidential nominee, Abraham Lincoln, stated he would not permit slavery anywhere in the country except where it already existed, which directly contradicted the court's ruling. His election is considered the final event that led the Southern states to secede from the Union, igniting the American Civil War.[16]

  1. ^ Vishneski (1988), p. 373, note 1.
  2. ^ a b Chemerinsky (2019), p. 722.
  3. ^ a b Nowak & Rotunda (2012), §18.6.
  4. ^ Hall, Kermit (1992). Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Oxford University Press. p. 889. ISBN 9780195176612. American legal and constitutional scholars consider the Dred Scott decision to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court. Historians have abundantly documented its role in crystallizing attitudes that led to war. Taney's opinion stands as a model of censurable judicial craft and failed judicial statesmanship.
  5. ^ Urofsky, Melvin (January 5, 2023). "Dred Scott decision | Definition, History, Summary, Significance, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 3, 2023. Among constitutional scholars, Scott v. Sandford is widely considered the worst decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. It has been cited in particular as the most egregious example in the court's history of wrongly imposing a judicial solution on a political problem. A later chief justice, Charles Evans Hughes, famously characterized the decision as the court's great "self-inflicted wound."
  6. ^ Staff (October 14, 2015). "13 Worst Supreme Court Decisions of All Time". FindLaw. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  7. ^ Bernard Schwartz (1997). A Book of Legal Lists: The Best and Worst in American Law. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0198026945.
  8. ^ "Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)". National Archives. July 27, 2021. Retrieved November 27, 2023.
  9. ^ Chemerinsky (2019), p. 723.
  10. ^ Carrafiello, Michael L. (Spring 2010). "Diplomatic Failure: James Buchanan's Inaugural Address". Pennsylvania History. 77 (2): 145–165. doi:10.5325/pennhistory.77.2.0145. JSTOR 10.5325/pennhistory.77.2.0145.
  11. ^ Gregory J. Wallance, "The Lawsuit That Started the Civil War." Civil War Times 45: 46–52.
  12. ^ Roberta Alexander, "Dred Scott: The decision that sparked a civil war." Northern Kentucky Law Review 34 (2007): 643+ excerpt.
  13. ^ ""No Rights Which the White Man was Bound to Respect": The Dred Scott Decision | ACS". March 19, 2007. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  14. ^ "What defines judicial activism? Not being an activist, says Kermit Roosevelt". Penn Today. July 15, 2022. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  15. ^ ""No Rights Which the White Man was Bound to Respect": The Dred Scott Decision | ACS". March 19, 2007. Retrieved January 9, 2023.
  16. ^ Dred Scott and the Dangers of a Political Court.


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