The offer was refused. Scott then sought freedom through the courts. Scott went to trial in June of , but lost on a technicality -- he couldn't prove that he and Harriet were owned by Emerson's widow. The following year the Missouri Supreme Court decided that case should be retried. In an retrial, the the St Louis circuit court ruled that Scott and his family were free.
Two years later the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in again, reversing the decision of the lower court. Scott and his lawyers then brought his case to a federal court, the United States Circuit Court in Missouri. There was now only one other place to go. Scott appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court. The nine justices of the Supreme Court of certainly had biases regarding slavery. Seven had been appointed by pro-slavery presidents from the South, and of these, five were from slave-holding families.
Still, if the case had gone directly from the state supreme court to the federal supreme court, the federal court probably would have upheld the state's ruling, citing a previously established decision that gave states the authority to determine the status of its inhabitants. Louis to live with her father and hired out Scott and his family. Scott tried multiple times to purchase his freedom from Irene, but she refused. For unknown reasons, Dred and Harriet Scott never tried to run away or sue for freedom while living in or traveling through free states and territories.
In April , Dred and Harriet filed separate lawsuits for freedom in the St. One statute allowed any person of any color to sue for wrongful enslavement. The other stated that any person taken to a free territory automatically became free and could not be re-enslaved upon returning to a slave state.
Neither Dred nor Harriet Scott could read or write and they needed both logistical and financial support to plead their case. They received it from their church, abolitionists and an unlikely source, the Blow family who had once owned them.
Since Dred and Harriet Scott had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory — both free domains — they hoped they had a persuasive case. When they went to trial on June 30, , however, the court ruled against them on a technicality and the judge granted a retrial.
The Scotts went to trial again in January and won their freedom. By this time, Irene had transferred Scott and his family to her brother, John Sandford although it was determined later that she retained ownership. On May 15, , the federal court heard Dred Scott v. Sandford and ruled against Scott, holding him and his family in slavery.
The trial began on February 11, By this time, the case had gained notoriety and Scott received support from many abolitionists, including powerful politicians and high-profile attorneys. But on March 6, , in the infamous Dred Scott decision , Scott lost his fight for freedom again. Taney became best known for writing the final majority opinion in Dred Scott v.
Sandford , which said that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not United States citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. In addition, he wrote that the Fifth Amendment protected slave owner rights because enslaved workers were their legal property.
The decision also argued that the Missouri Compromise legislation — passed to balance the power between slave and non-slave states — was unconstitutional. In effect, this meant that Congress had no power to prevent the spread of slavery.
Sandford decision. The controversy began in , when Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon with the U. Army, purchased Dred Scott, a slave, and eventually moved Scott to a base in the Wisconsin Territory.
Slavery was banned in the territory pursuant to the Missouri Compromise. Scott lived there for the next four years, hiring himself out for work during the long stretches when Emerson was away. In , Scott, his new wife, and their young children moved to Louisiana and then to St. Louis with Emerson. Emerson died in , leaving the Scott family to his wife, Eliza Irene Sanford. In , after laboring and saving for years, the Scotts sought to buy their freedom from Sanford, but she refused.
Dred Scott then sued Sanford in a state court, arguing that he was legally free because he and his family had lived in a territory where slavery was banned.
In , the state court finally declared Scott free. However, Scott's wages had been withheld pending the resolution of his case, and during that time Mrs. Scott lived in Wisconsin with his master, Dr. John Emerson, for several years before returning to Missouri, a slave state. He won his suit in a lower court, but the Missouri supreme court reversed the decision. Scott appealed the decision, and as his new master, J.
Sanford, was a resident of New York , a federal court decided to hear the case on the basis of the diversity of state citizenship represented. After a federal district court decided against Scott, the case came on appeal to the U. Supreme Court, which was divided along slavery and antislavery lines; although the Southern justices had a majority. During the trial, the antislavery justices used the case to defend the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, which had been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of The Southern majority responded by ruling on March 6, , that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
Three of the Southern justices also held that African Americans who were enslaved or whose ancestors were enslaved were not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing in court.
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