Dred Scott v. Sandford: Encyclopedia II - Dred Scott v. Sandford - The consequences

Dred Scott v. Sandford - The consequences

The decision was a culmination of what many at that time considered was a push to expand slavery. The expansion of the territories and resulting admission of new states meant that the longstanding Missouri Compromise would cause the loss of political power in the South as all new states would be admitted as free states. Thus, Democratic party politicians sought repeal of the Missouri Compromise and were finally successful in 1854 with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which naturally ended the "compromise." This Act permitted each newly-admitted state south of the 40th parallel to decide whether to be a slave state or free state. Now, with Dred Scott, the Supreme Court under Taney sought to permit the unhindered expansion of slavery into the territories.

Although Taney believed that the decision would settle the slavery question once and for all, it produced the opposite result. It strengthened the opposition to slavery in the North, divided the Democratic Party on sectional lines, encouraged secessionist elements among Southern supporters of slavery to make even bolder demands, and led to the establishment of the Republican Party and rise of Abraham Lincoln.

The reaction to the decision from opponents of slavery was fierce. The Albany Evening Journal combined two themes in denouncing the decision as both an offense to the principles of liberty on which the nation was founded and a victory for the Slave Power over the free states:

The three hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five Slaveholders in the Republic, accomplished day before yesterday a great success — as shallow men estimate success. They converted the Supreme Court of Law and Equity of the United States of America into a propagandist of human Slavery. Fatal day for a judiciary made reputable throughout the world, and reliable to all in this nation, by the learning and the virtues of Jay, Rutledge, Ellsworth, Marshall and Story!
The conspiracy is nearly completed. The Legislation of the Republic is in the hands of this handfull of Slaveholders. The United States Senate assures it to them. The Executive power of the Government is theirs. Buchanan took the oath of fealty to them on the steps of the Capitol last Wednesday. The body which gives the supreme law of the land, has just acceded to their demands, and dared to declare that under the charter of the Nation, men of African descent are not citizens of the United States and can not be — that the Ordinance of 1787 was void — that human Slavery is not a local thing, but pursues its victims to free soil, clings to them wherever they go, and returns with them — that the American Congress has no power to prevent the enslavement of men in the National Territories — that the inhabitants themselves of the Territories have no power to exclude human bondage from their midst — and that men of color can not be suitors for justice in the Courts of the United States!

That editorial ended on a martial note:

... All who love Republican institutions and who hate Aristocracy, compact yourselves together for the struggle which threatens your liberty and will test your manhood!

Many abolitionists and some supporters of slavery believed that Taney was prepared to rule, as soon as the issue was presented in a subsequent case, that the states had no power to prohibit slavery within their borders and that state laws providing for the emancipation of slaves brought into their territory or forbidding the institution of slavery were likewise unconstitutional. Abraham Lincoln stressed this danger during the Lincoln–Douglas Debates in his speech at Springfield, Illinois, on June 17, 1858:

Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. [...] We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.

That fear of the "next" Dred Scott decision shocked many in the North who had been content to accept slavery as long as it was confined within its present borders.

It also put the Northern Democrats, such as Stephen A. Douglas, in a difficult position. The Northern wing of the Democratic Party had supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 under the banner of "popular sovereignty," arguing that even if Congress did not bar the expansion of slavery into those territories, the residents of those territories could prohibit it by territorial legislation. The Dred Scott decision squarely stated that they could not – even though, strictly speaking, that issue was not before the Court.

Douglas attempted to overcome that obstacle, without challenging the Court's decision directly, by his Freeport Doctrine. Douglas insisted that, even if a territory could not bar slavery outright, the institution could not take root without local police regulations to protect it.

While this doctrine may have allayed Northern Democrats' fears, it was wholly unacceptable to Southern Democrats, who reached a different conclusion from the same premise. As they argued, if hostile territorial governments could obstruct their right to bring their slaves into a territory by refusing to protect that right, then Congress must intervene to pass a federal slave code for all the territories. They often coupled this with threats to secede if Congress did not comply.

At the same time Democrats characterized Republicans as lawless rebels, provoking disunion by their unwillingness to accept the Supreme Court's decision as the law of the land. Many Northern opponents of slavery had offered a legalistic argument for refusing to recognize the Dred Scott decision as binding. As they noted, the Court's decision began with the proposition that the federal courts did not have jurisdiction to hear Scott's case because he was not a citizen of the State of Missouri. Therefore, so the opponents argued, the remainder of the decision concerning the Missouri Compromise was unnecessary, beyond the Court's power to decide and invalid. Douglas attacked this position in the Lincoln–Douglas debates:

Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decisions in that court—to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our constitution.

Southern supporters of slavery went further, claiming that the decision was essential to the preservation of the union. As the Richmond Enquirer stated:

Thus has a politico-legal question, involving others of deep import, been decided emphatically in favor of the advocates and supporters of the Constitution and the Union, the equality of the States and the rights of the South, in contradistinction to and in repudiation of the diabolical doctrines inculcated by factionists and fanatics; and that too by a tribunal of jurists, as learned, impartial and unprejudiced as perhaps the world has ever seen. A prize, for which the athletes of the nation have often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it. The "nation" has achieved a triumph, "sectionalism" has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned. Another supporting pillar has been added to our institutions; the assailants of the South and enemies of the Union have been driven from their "point d'appui"; a patriotic principle has been pronounced; a great, national, conservative, union saving sentiment has been proclaimed.

But while some supporters of slavery treated the decision as a vindication of their rights within the union, others treated it as merely a step to spreading slavery throughout the nation, as the Republicans claimed. Convinced that any restrictions on their right to own slaves and to take them anywhere they chose were unlawful, they boasted that the coming decade would see slave auctions in Boston Commons. These Southern radicals were ready to split the Democratic Party and — as events showed — the nation on that principle.

Dred Scott v. Sandford - Reaction to the case

• Frederick Douglas, a prominent African-American abolitionist, realized that the unconstitutionality of the decision and the Chief Justice's reasoning were so inapposite to the founders' vision that the political conflict could not be avoided. "The highest authority has spoken. The voice of the Supreme Court has gone out over the troubled waves of the National Conscience. But my hopes were never brighter than now. I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous issue of lies."

Dred Scott v. Sandford - Scott's fate

The sons of Peter Blow, Scott's first owner, purchased emancipation for Scott and his family on May 26, 1857. Scott died a little over a year later, on September 17, 1858

Dred Scott v. Sandford - Judicial Appointments

For some in the anti-abortion movement, Roe v. Wade has taken on a significance similar to the Dred Scott decision. To these thinkers, the two cases are similar both in specifics, in that they both unjustly removed constitutional protections from a class of persons (blacks in Dred Scott, fetuses in Roe), and in general, in that they represented illegitimate meddling by the Court in political matters.

This analogy was an esoteric one until President George W. Bush replied to a question during the second 2004 Presidential debate about possible appointments to the United States Supreme Court by stating, "[T]he Dred Scott case [...] is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. . . . And so, I would pick people [for the U.S. Supreme Court] that would be strict constructionists. We've got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution." The comment puzzled some observers, since that case dealt with the issue of slavery, abolished in the United States almost a century and a half previously; some commentators thought that Bush's reply was a rather strange bit of historical minutia. However, others felt that the statement allowed Bush to send a message to dedicated pro-life voters, who would understand it as a veiled attack on Roe v. Wade, without explicitly calling for an overturning of the decision, which might alienate others. Many others viewed the statement for its plain meaning, that the best judges ground their judicial decisions on the Constitution rather than on legislative preferences.

The comment was particularly confusing because the implied larger point, that the constitution disallows slavery in general, is false. According to article 1, section 2.3 of the Constitution:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

While there is no mention of the actual word "slavery," there is no doubt who the "other persons" with three fifths representation are - making the issue of slavery one of the most powerful arguments for judicial activism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The consequences", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki