It’s my passion to learn as much as possible about my people—
Those that were taken from their homeland in Africa and brought here to be held in bondage.
Some people want to forget about what those settlers did when they came to this part of the world. They took the land from Native Americans, herd then off onto reservation…all that weren’t massacred.
Moreover, they took human beings and turned them into a property. I found my Great Great Great Grandfather listed as property in his master’s will. I wondered if he ever thought about freedom while he was enslaved?
Accordingly, I will never learn the answer to my question concerning my enslaved ancestors–however, I can understand how other outspoken enslaved people felt.
Meet Dred and Harriet Scott
In 1846 an enslaved man named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court based on these two facts–they had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of Wisconsin.
The Scotts’ sued for their freedom on the grounds of being held in bondage, extended periods in the free territory, then returned to slave states.
Subsequently, Courts had ruled in the past that way. However, the straightforward lawsuit between two private parties became an 11-year legal struggle that became one of the most notorious decisions ever issued by the Supreme Court.
As a matter of fact, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts in its ruling.
Moreover, the opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory.
By the time the case reached the High Court, it had come to have enormous political implications for the entire nation. Slavery had become the single most explosive issue in American politics.
Most important of all, that decision moved the country closer to Civil War.
The upshot of Scott v. Sanford’s decision–overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens.
Source of Information
Judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford, 3/6/1857. National Archives Identifier 301674