Dred Scott Case Essay

The Dred Scott case was a very important time in United States history, politics, and American Law. In the 1800’s, unlike the northern part of the country, southern states underwent slavery. The Dred Scott case was a case that dealt specifically with slavery; the case began with a slave wanting freedom for he and his family. Like most slaves Dred Scott was born into slavery, in 1799 and didn’t get out until Emancipation Day. Dred Scott was born in Virginia to a slave master by the name of Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon. His current owner had taken him for many years to Illinois and to Fort Snelling, in the Minnesota territory which were both free states at that time due to the Missouri Compromise. Scott had sued Emerson in Missouri, but that case got dismissed because he could not prove …show more content…
Following that, a new trial arose and Scott had won the case, but Emerson appealed. Not to shortly after Scott and his family were granted their freedom, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed saying that the Scott’s were slaves and they should have sued while they lived in a free state. Both Dred Scott who was 40, and his wife, who was 17 years old at the time, sued for their freedom in 1846, but did not go to trial until 1847. He later was sold to a slave owner by the name of Sanford. At the beginning, Scott had at first won the case, but it started to move on appeal to the state courts, the federal system and after 11 years, the Supreme Courts. With hesitation, the Supreme Court decided to hear Dred Scott vs. Sanford. Two northern justices had decided that they would argue Scott’ s freedom and the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise. Since Dred Scott and his family lived in a free state, but where still being treated as slaves, aroused the question, are they free or are they still slaves? Dred Scott believed that since he resided in a free state, that made him free. In Article four of the Constitution it states that any slave who