Dred Scott | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Scottc. 1857 | |
| Born | c. 1799 |
| Died | September 17, 1858 (aged approximately 59) |
| Resting place | Calvary Cemetery |
| Known for | Dred Scott v. Sandford |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4[a] |
Dred Scott (c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was anenslaved African-American man who, along with his wife,Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in theDred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and theWisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period.
In a landmark case, theUnited States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court underdiversity of citizenship rules. Scott's temporary residence in free territory outsideMissouri did not bring about his emancipation, because theMissouri Compromise, which made that territory free by prohibiting slavery north of the36°30′ parallel, was unconstitutional because it "deprives citizens of their [slave] property without due process of law".
AlthoughChief JusticeRoger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and congressional authority by this decision, it aroused public outrage, deepened sectional tensions between the northern and southern states, and hastened the eventual explosion of their differences into theAmerican Civil War. PresidentAbraham Lincoln'sEmancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil WarReconstruction Amendments—theThirteenth,Fourteenth andFifteenth amendments—nullified the decision. The Scotts weremanumitted by private arrangement in May 1857. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis a year later.
Dred Scott was born into slaveryc. 1799 inSouthampton County, Virginia. It is not clear whether Dred was his given name or a shortened form of Etheldred.[1]
In 1818, Dred was taken by Peter Blow and his family, with their five other slaves, to Alabama, where the family ran an unsuccessful farm in a location nearHuntsville. This site is now occupied byOakwood University.[2][3][4] The Blows gave up farming in 1830 and moved toSt. Louis, Missouri.[5]
Dred Scott was sold to Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon serving in theUnited States Army, who planned to move toRock Island, Illinois. Blow died in 1832, and historians debate whether Scott was sold to Emerson before or after Blow's death. Some believe that Scott was sold in 1831, while others point to enslaved people in Blow's estate who were sold to Emerson after Blow's death, including one with a name given as Sam, who may be the same person as Scott.[6] After Scott learned of this sale, he attempted to run away. His decision to do so was spurred by a distaste he had developed for Emerson. Scott was temporarily successful in his escape as he, much like many other runaway slaves during this time period, "never tried to distance his pursuers, but dodged around among his fellow slaves as long as possible". Eventually, he was captured in the "Lucas Swamps" of Missouri and taken back.[7]
As an army officer, Emerson moved frequently, taking Scott with him to each new army posting. In 1833, Emerson and Scott went toFort Armstrong, in thefree state of Illinois. In 1837, Emerson took Scott toFort Snelling, in what is now the state ofMinnesota and was then in the freeterritory of Wisconsin. There, Scott met and marriedHarriet Robinson, a slave owned byLawrence Taliaferro. The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony presided over by Taliaferro, who was ajustice of the peace. Since slave marriages had no legal sanction, supporters of Scott later noted that this ceremony was evidence that Scott was being treated as a free man. But Taliaferro transferred ownership of Harriet to Emerson, who treated the Scotts as his slaves.[5]
Dr. Emerson was transferred toFort Jesup in Louisiana in 1837, leaving the Scott family behind at Fort Snelling and leasing them out (also called hiring out) to other officers.[5] In February 1838, Emerson met and married Eliza Irene Sanford in Louisiana, whereupon he sent for the Scotts to join him, only to be reassigned to Fort Snelling later that year.[1][8] While on a steamboat heading north on the Mississippi River, north of Missouri, Harriet Scott gave birth to their first child, whom they named Eliza.[1] They later had a daughter, Lizzie. They also had two sons, but neither survived past infancy.[5]
The Emersons and Scotts returned to Missouri, a slave state, in 1840. In 1842, Emerson left the Army. After he died in the Iowa Territory in 1843, his widow Irene inherited his estate, including the Scotts. For three years after Emerson's death, she continued to lease out the Scotts as hired slaves. In 1846, Scott attempted to purchase his and his family's freedom, offering $300 ($10,500 adjusted for inflation).[9] Irene Emerson refused the offer. Scott and his wife separately filedfreedom suits to try to gain their freedom and that of their daughters. The cases were later combined by the courts.[10]
The Scotts' cases were first heard by the Missouri circuit court. The first court upheld the precedent of "once free, always free". That is, because the Scotts had been held voluntarily for an extended period by their owner in a free territory, which provided for slaves to be freed under such conditions, the court ruled, they had gained their freedom. The owner appealed. In 1852 the Missouri supreme court overruled this decision, on the basis that the state did not have to abide by free states' laws, especially given the anti-slavery fervor of the time. It said that Scott should have filed for freedom in the Wisconsin Territory.
Scott ended up filing a freedom suit in federal court (see below for details), in a case that he appealed to the US Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African descendants were not U.S. citizens and had no standing to sue for freedom. It also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. This was the last in a series offreedom suits from 1846 to 1857, that began in Missouri courts, and were heard by lower federal district courts. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the earlier precedents and established new limitations on African Americans.
In 1846, having failed to purchase his freedom, Scott filed a freedom suit in St. Louis Circuit Court. Missouri precedent, dating to 1824, had held that slaves freed through prolonged residence in a free state or territory, where the law provided for slaves to gain freedom under such conditions, would remain free if returned to Missouri. The doctrine was known as "Once free, always free". Scott and his wife had resided for two years in free states and free territories, and his eldest daughter had been born on the Mississippi River, between a free state and a free territory.[11]
Dred Scott was listed as the onlyplaintiff in the case, but his wife, Harriet, had filed separately and their cases were combined. She played a critical role, pushing him to pursue freedom on behalf of their family. She was a frequent churchgoer, and in St. Louis, her church pastor (a well-knownabolitionist) connected the Scotts to their first lawyer. The Scott children were around the age of ten when the case was originally filed. The Scotts were worried that their daughters might be sold.[12]
TheScott v. Emerson case was tried by the state in 1847 in thefederal-state courthouse in St. Louis. Scott's lawyer was originallyFrancis B. Murdoch and laterCharles D. Drake. As more than a year elapsed from the time of the initial petition filing until the trial, Drake had moved away from St. Louis during that time.Samuel M. Bay tried the case in court.[8] The verdict went against Scott, as testimony that established his ownership by Mrs. Emerson was ruled to be hearsay. But the judge called for a retrial, which was not held until January 1850. This time, direct evidence was introduced that Emerson owned Scott, and the jury ruled in favor of Scott's freedom.
Irene Emerson appealed the verdict. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, arguing that, because of the free states' anti-slavery fervor was encroaching on Missouri, the state no longer had to defer to the laws of free states.[13] By this decision, the court overturned 28 years of precedent in Missouri. JusticeHamilton R. Gamble, who was later appointed as governor of Missouri, sharply disagreed with the majority decision and wrote a dissenting opinion.
In 1853, Scott again sued for his freedom, this time under federal law. Irene Emerson had moved to Massachusetts, and Scott had been transferred to Irene Emerson's brother,John F. A. Sanford. Because Sanford was a citizen of New York, while Scott would be a citizen of Missouri if he were free, the Federal courts haddiversity jurisdiction over the case.[14] After losing again in federal district court, the Scotts appealed to theUnited States Supreme Court inDred Scott v. Sandford. (The name is spelled "Sandford" in the court decision due to a clerical error.)
On March 6, 1857, Chief JusticeRoger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion. Taney ruled, with three major issues, that:
The Court had ruled that African Americans had no claim to freedom or citizenship. Since they were not citizens, they did not possess the legal standing to bring suit in a federal court. As slaves were private property, Congress did not have the power to regulate slavery in the territories and could not revoke a slave owner's rights based on where he lived. This decision nullified the essence of the Missouri Compromise, which divided territories into jurisdictions either free or slave. Speaking for the majority, Taney ruled that because Scott was considered the private property of his owners, he was subject to theFifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the taking of property from its owner "without due process".[16]
Rather than settling issues, as Taney had hoped, the court's ruling in the Scott case increased tensions between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in both North and South, further pushing the country toward the brink of civil war. Ultimately after theCivil War, on July 9, 1868, the14th Amendment to the Constitution settled the issue of Black citizenship via Section 1 of that Amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside ..."[17]
Scott's freedom suit before the state courts was backed financially by Peter Blow's adult children, who had turned against slavery in the decade since they sold Dred Scott.Henry Taylor Blow was elected as a Republican Congressman after the Civil War,Charlotte Taylor Blow married the son of an abolitionist newspaper editor, and Martha Ella Blow marriedCharles D. Drake, one of Scott's lawyers who was elected by the state legislature as a Republican US Senator. Members of the Blow family signed as security for Scott's legal fees and secured the services of local lawyers. While the case was pending, the St. Louis County sheriff held these payments in escrow and leased Scott out for fees.
In 1851, Scott was leased by Charles Edmund LaBeaume, whose sister had married into the Blow family.[5] Scott worked as a janitor at LaBeaume's law office, which was shared with lawyerRoswell Field.[19]
After the Missouri Supreme Court decision ruled against the Scotts, the Blow family concluded that the case was hopeless and decided that they could no longer pay Scott's legal fees. Roswell Field agreed to represent Scottpro bono before the federal courts. Scott was represented before the U.S. Supreme Court byMontgomery Blair. (Blair later served in PresidentAbraham Lincoln's cabinet asPostmaster General.) Assisting Blair was attorneyGeorge Curtis. His brotherBenjamin was an Associate Supreme Court Justice and wrote one of the two dissents inDred Scott v. Sandford.[5]
In 1850, Irene Emerson remarried and moved toSpringfield, Massachusetts. Her new husband,Calvin C. Chaffee, was anabolitionist. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1854 and fiercely attacked by pro-slavery newspapers for his apparent hypocrisy in owning slaves.
Given the complicated facts of the Dred Scott case, some observers on both sides raised suspicions of collusion to create atest case. Abolitionist newspapers charged that slaveholders colluded to name a New Yorker as defendant, while pro-slavery newspapers charged collusion on the abolitionist side.[20]
About a century later, a historian established that John Sanford never legally owned Dred Scott, nor did he serve as executor of Dr. Emerson's will.[19] It was unnecessary to find a New Yorker to secure diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, as Irene Emerson Chaffee (still legally the owner) had become a resident of Massachusetts. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Roswell Field advised Dr. Chaffee that Mrs. Chaffee had full powers over Scott.[20] However, Sanford had been involved in the case since the beginning, as he had secured a lawyer to defend Mrs. Emerson in the original state lawsuit before she married Chaffee.[10]
.jpg)
.jpg)
Following the ruling, the Chaffees deeded the Scott family to Republican CongressmanTaylor Blow, whomanumitted them on May 26, 1857. Scott worked as aporter in a St. Louis hotel, but his freedom was short-lived; he died fromtuberculosis in September 1858.[21][22] He was survived by his wife and his two daughters.
Scott was originally interred in Wesleyan Cemetery in St. Louis. When this cemetery was closed nine years later, Taylor Blow transferred Scott's coffin to an unmarked plot in the nearby CatholicCalvary Cemetery, St. Louis, which permitted burial of non-Catholic slaves by Catholic owners.[23] Some of Scott's family members have claimed that he was a Catholic.[24] A local tradition later developed of placingLincoln pennies on top of Scott's gravestone for good luck.[23]
Harriet Scott outlived her husband by eighteen years, dying on June 17, 1876[5] and was buried inGreenwood Cemetery inHillsdale, Missouri. Their daughter, Eliza, married and had two sons. Their other daughter, Lizzie, never married but, following Eliza's early death, helped raise her nephews. One of Eliza's sons died young, but the other married and has descendants, some of whom still live in St. Louis as of 2023,[25] including Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, who led the successful effort to install a new towering memorial at Dred Scott's grave at Calvary Cemetery on September 30, 2023.[18]
The newspaper coverage of the court ruling, and the 10-year legal battle raised awareness of slavery in non-slave states. The arguments for freedom were later used by U.S. PresidentAbraham Lincoln. The words of the decision built popular opinion and voter sentiment for hisEmancipation Proclamation and the three constitutional amendments ratified shortly after the Civil War: The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments, abolishing slavery, granting former slaves' citizenship, and conferring citizenship to anyone born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (excluding subjects to a foreign power such as children of foreign ambassadors).[26]
Shelia P. Moses andBonnie Christensen wroteI, Dred Scott: A Fictional Slave Narrative Based on the Life and Legal Precedent of Dred Scott (2005).[27] Mary E. Neighbour, wroteSpeak Right On: Dred Scott: A Novel (2006).[27] Gregory J. Wallance published the novelTwo Men Before the Storm: Arba Crane's Recollection of Dred Scott and the Supreme Court Case That Started the Civil War (2006).[27]
 | This article'suse ofexternal links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Pleaseimprove this article by removingexcessive orinappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate intofootnote references.(January 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
