Dred Scott Ruling Case Study

Dred Scott Ruling In the Supreme Court’s decision on Dred Scott’s many consequences brought tension surrounding the issue of slavery in the United States. “In the case, the Supreme Court rules that Scott was still a slave, and therefore, he had no right to file the suit in the United State court as he was not a citizen and did not have any legal rights” (Horton). This case may have been the one of most controversial in American history due to the fact that it deals with such a disputable topic as slavery. In this paper, I will discuss legal and cultural events from the Dred Scott v. Sandford case that may have flared the start of the Civil War. Dred Scott was a born slave in Virginia around the 1800s and moved with his owner to Missouri. Scott was then sold to an army surgeon, who took him to Illinois and Wisconsin Territory, a free territory under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that prohibited slavery (623). While in Wisconsin, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson and they had two daughters. Scott finally returned to St. Louis in 1842 with his family and the Emerson’s (623).
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After the death of Emerson, Scott and his family were hired out to work for other family by Mrs. …show more content…
The American public reacted very strongly to the Dred Scott decision. The new Republican Party, founded to prohibit the spread of slavery, vowed to gain control of Congress and the courts. The political campaign of 1860, led to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. The outcome of the Dred Scott decision leads Abraham Lincoln to publicly speak out against the ruling (Wallance). The Dred Scott case was one of the most catastrophic rulings in American History and will forever change the true definition of slavery. The force behind the ruling of the Dred Scott V. Sandford Case may have been the flare the start of the Civil War