Dr. John Emerson's Argumentative Essay

A man named Dr. John Emerson, a white male, decided to purchase a slave named Dred Scott in the year 1833. Because Emerson was a involved with the army for imployement reasons, he and Scott lived in a military base in Wisconsin. Their move to Wisconsin was controversial however because Wisconsin was no longer a slave state due to the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise was a deal the United States made with Missouri, resulting in the creation of a new amendment, in which Missouri was introduced into the country as a slave state. Because of Missouri's decision to enter as a slave state, it offset the balance the union had where there was an equal number of slave states as there were free states so in order to fix this, the United States made Maine a slavery free state. Soon after this, an amendment where an imaginary line would be …show more content…
Scott and his family saved all of the money they earned in order to pay Emerson's wife Eliza Irene Sanford to leave them alone. She refused to let them free which is when Scott and his family decided to take legal action. During his time at court, Scott argued that the Missouri Compromise granted him freedom since he had lived in a free land. The Court sided with him. However, after Eliza Sanford remarried, she entrusted her brother with the court case. Her brother refused to pay what he owed Scott so he appealed the Court's decision. The cases was taken to the Missouri Supreme Court who ended up siding with Sanford's brother which resulted in Scott suing Sanford's brother stating that Sanford had physically abused him. The Court had labeled Scott a slave under the law and explained that because he was a slave, he could not sue. However, after much debate, the Court decided that Scott was still considered a slave and even if he was not considered one anymore, Congress did not have the power to ban slavery in the country's