In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory.
In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom
in a St. Louis city court. The odds were in their favor. They had lived with
their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of
Wisconsin. The Scotts' freedom could be established on the grounds that they
had been held in bondage for extended periods in a free territory and were then
returned to a slave state. Courts had ruled this way in the past. However, what
appeared to be a straightforward lawsuit between two private parties became
an 11-year legal struggle that culminated in one of the most notorious decisions
ever issued by the United States Supreme Court.
On its way to the Supreme Court, the Dred Scott case grew in scope and significance
as slavery became the single most explosive issue in American politics. By the
time the case reached the high court, it had come to have enormous political
implications for the entire nation.
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of
the Court, which stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and,
therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the
courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery
from a Federal territory. This decision moved the nation a step closer to Civil
War.
The decision of Scott v. Sanford, considered by legal scholars to be
the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court, was overturned by the 13th and
14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all
persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States.
