In 1846, a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom. Scott argued that while he had been the slave of an army surgeon, he had lived for four years in Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory, and that his residence on free soil had erased his slave status. In 1850 a Missouri court gave Scott his freedom, but two years later, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed this decision and returned Scott to slavery. Scott then appealed to the federal courts.
All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court's majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.
The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
Second, Taney declared that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the federal territories since any law excluding slavery property from the territories was a violation of the Fifth Amendment prohibition against the seizure of property without due process of law. For the first time since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.
Multiple Select Question
Using the justification of Chief Justice Taney, what reasons did the Supreme Court give in the Dredd Scott ruling?
A.
Dredd Scott was already a free man.
B.
Dredd Scott had no right to sue because he was not a citizen.
C.
Dredd Scott lived in a free state.
D.
Dredd Scott had no rights to which white men had to respect.
E.
Congress could free slaves if they were in free states.
F.
Congress could not excluded slavery from the federal territories.
1 answer
Based on the justification provided by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott ruling, the correct answers would be:
B. Dredd Scott had no right to sue because he was not a citizen.
D. Dredd Scott had no rights to which white men had to respect.
F. Congress could not exclude slavery from the federal territories.
These options reflect the Court's reasoning in the Dred Scott decision regarding citizenship and the legal status of slavery in federal territories.
