mar 6, 1857 - Dred Scott v. Sandford
Description:
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American who had lived for a time with his owner, an army surgeon, in the free state of Illinois and at Fort Snelling in the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase, where the Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery. Scott claimed that residence in a free state and free territory made him free. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland declared that Negroes, whether enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States and that Scott therefore had no right to sue in federal court. Taney also stated that the Congress could not prevent southern citizens from moving their slave property into the territories and owning it there. Lastly, Taney declared the Congress could not give territorial governments any powers that it did not possess, such as the authority to prohibit slavery. The North and Republicans would never accept the legitimacy of Taney's constitutional arguments causing great disagreement between the North and South.
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Events Leading to the Civil War
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