What was the supreme court's ruling in Scott vs Sanford?

Answer 1

In a 7-2 ruling, the US Supreme Court held the following:

• African-Americans could never be citizens of the United States or the individual states.
• African-Americans were chattel (property) according to the Constitution, and their owners were protected from losing their property under the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause and Due Process Clause, which invalidated the "once free, always free" tradition.
• Because African-Americans were considered property, and were not legal citizens, they had no right to sue for their freedom.
• The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because Congress had overstepped its authority in attempting to regulate states' rights.
• Citizens' groups were prohibited from establishing anti-slavery territories.

More Information

The Circuit Court found in favor of Sanford, and Scott's attorney appealed to the US Supreme Court for the 1854 Term. Roswell requested Montgomery Blair, a St. Louis attorney living in Washington, DC, argue Dred Scott's case before the Court.

The question before the Court was distilled to the constitutionality of the "once free, always free" doctrine.

Montgomery Blair (Scott's attorney) argued that freedom based on residence in a free state or territory was permanent, and slavery did not reattach on return to a slave state. This ruling had stood in Missouri until the state supreme court had taken a partisan political stance in its 1852 majority opinion. He also stated that a "Negro of African descent" could be a citizen of the United States.

The respondent's attorneys, Reverdy Johnson and Henry S. Geyer, argued the Congressional authority to relieve a slave-owner of his property in so-called free states and territories was unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause. Their position was that Dred Scott was never free to begin with.

The constitutional issues elevated the Dred Scott case to national prominence, and heightened tension between opposing interests.

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the 7-2 verdict of the Court. The majority held that "A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States....Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit."

Under Taney's interpretation, neither Dred Scott nor any other African-American, had standing to sue for his or her freedom; nor did the federal courts have jurisdiction to hear the cases. [This holding alone was extremely crippling to legal emancipation prior to Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.] Since African-Americans could not be citizens of the United States, the Court reasoned, they could also not claim to be citizens of any of its states or territories, barring them from pursuing justice in the state courts, as well. "The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as slaves, he is not a citizen of the State of Missouri according to the Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that character in the Circuit Court."

Further, Taney declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional as a state's rights issue, claiming Congress had no constitutional authority to restrict slave ownership among the states, or to deprive slave owners of their "property," once the federal territories became states: "The clause in the Constitution authorizing Congress to make all needful rules and regulations for the government of the territory and other property of the United States applies only to territory within the chartered limits of some one of the States when they were colonies of Great Britain, and which was surrendered by the British Government to the old Confederation of the States in the treaty of peace. It does not apply to territory acquired by the present Federal Government by treaty or conquest from a foreign nation."

"During the time it remains a Territory, Congress may legislate over it within the scope of its constitutional powers in relation to citizens of the United States, and may establish a Territorial Government, and the form of the local Government must be regulated by the discretion of Congress, but with powers not exceeding those which Congress itself, by the Constitution, is authorized to exercise over citizens of the United States in respect to the rights of persons or rights of property."

"Congress have no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular State or States from taking up their home there while it permits citizens of other States to do so. Nor has it a right to give privileges to one class of citizens which it refuses to another. The territory is acquired for their equal and common benefit, and if open to any, it must be open to all upon equal and the same terms.

"Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognizes as property.

"The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property of that description than it may constitutionally exercise over property of any other kind.

"The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Constitution, and the removal of the plaintiff by his owner to that Territory gave him no title to freedom."

Taney also put an end to the "once free, always free," doctrine replacing it with a concept more akin to "once owned, always owned," based on Fifth Amendment property protections.

"The plaintiff himself acquired no title to freedom by being taken by his owner to Rock Island, in Illinois, and brought back to Missouri. This court has heretofore decided that thestatus or condition of a person of African descent depended on the laws of the State in which he resided.

"It has been settled by the decisions of the highest court in Missouri that, by the laws of that State, a slave does not become entitled to his freedom where the owner takes him to reside in a State where slavery is not permitted and afterwards brings him back to Missouri."

The Court affirmed the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court and found in favor of Sanford. The seven members voting against Dred Scott were all pro-slavery and had ties to the South.

Justices Curtis and McLean dissented from the ruling, finding no constitutional grounds for prohibiting African-Americans from being citizens of the United States, and finding fault with Taney's contradictory claims that the Court lacked jurisdiction, while simultaneously adjudicating the case. When a court lacks jurisdiction, the case is supposed to be dismissed without a decision.

Taney apparently hoped his ruling would settle the question of slave ownership and reduce mounting tensions between the southern states and northern abolitionists; however, historians often cite the Dred Scott decision as one of the major catalysts to the Civil War.

Case Citation:

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 (1857)

Answer 2

This is not a DingoBot problem. All the information correct with no reposition.

The decision of the US Supreme Court in the Scott vs Sanford was far reaching. It can be summarized this way:

1. Scott was not a citizen because he was a slave;

2. Scott was also not a citizen because he was Black;

3. Because of the two above statements Scott was not eligible to take any measures towards a court decision; and

4. The Court confirmed that slavery was legal and that slaves were the property of their owners.