Dred Scott Decision and Raid

The Dred Scott Decision

• Dred Scott was a slave who was owned by John Emerson

• Emerson took Scott from Missouri to Illinois and then to Wisconsin

  • Missouri was a slave state
  • Illinois was a free state
  • Wisconsin was a free state

• Scott was sold back to his original owner Taylor Blow

  • Blow freed Scott and his family

• Scott vs Stanford, 1854, to the Supreme Court, 1857

  • Scott traveled with his owner (an army officer)
  • sued, arguing free-state residency → freedom

• Chief Justice Roger Taney:

  • black americans
  • had no right to citizenship
  • human chattel could be moved anywhere with a change in status
  • federal limits on slavery in the territories were unconstitutional

• in effect: slavery was the law of the land

• this decision struck down The Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional, saying that Congress had no power to forbid or abolish slavery in the territories

The Harpers Ferry Raid

• 1859, John Brown and allies planned to start a nation-wide slave rebellion
• October 16, 1859, captured federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
• federal troops quelled the attack and they arrested Brown

The Harper’s Ferry and The 1860 Election

• Brown executed December 2, 1859 in Charles Town for treason
  • northerners proclaimed him hero/martyr
  • southerners were shocked
• this occurred the 1860 election year