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What was the US Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case based on?
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
It seems that the private opinions of the extremely aged Chief Justice, Roger Taney, had a lot to do with it - perhaps more than they should have done.
Also the local judges had been able to exploit Scott's debatable status, as a slave who had been brought back from free soil into slave country, and had missed his chance to apply for his freedom in the normal way.
Answer
- Chief Justice Taney sided with the South, despite believing slavery was a "blot on our national character."
- Incoming President Buchanan pressured Taney to render a decision that would overturn the problematic Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- Both Taney and Buchanan wanted a legal, rather than political, solution that would end the battle in Congress.
- Taney believed the individual states should decide whether to allow slavery without the intrusion of the federal government.
- Taney did not believe the Framers of the Constitution considered slaves citizens.
- Taney believed informal policies like "once free, always free" deprived slave owners of their Fifth Amendment right to Due Process.
- The South was economically dependent on slavery.
Case Citation:
Dred Scott v. Sandford*, 60 US 393 (1857)
For more information, see Related Questions, below.
Wiki User
∙ 12y ago
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoThe Constitution - interpreted literally, in the manner in which it had originally been written, when African-Americans were not regarded as full citizens.
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