Dred Scott
Dred Scott ( * 1799, † September 17, 1858 ) was a slave who sued unsuccessfully in the famous Dred Scott v. Sandford process for his freedom. His complaint was based on the fact that he and his wife Harriet had lived in states and territories where slavery was illegal, including Illinois and parts of the Louisiana Purchase. The court ruled 7 to 2 vote against Scott, on the grounds that slaves were property, and that owners of their property should not be disposed of except by a constitutional, statutory intervention (5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). A further reason was that in order to even be able to bring an action, an American citizen need. Black slaves were, however, considered at that time as a private property of their owners and therefore had no right to citizenship. This process was an important step in the chain of events that led to the Civil War.
The life of Dred Scott
Dred Scott was born in 1799 in Virginia as "property " of the Peter Blow family. In 1830 he moved with the Blows to St. Louis, where they had to sell it due to financial problems to Dr. John Emerson, a doctor of the United States Army. Emerson took more trips to Illinois and the then territory of Wisconsin - there was slavery prohibited by the Northwest Ordinance. During these trips, both Scott Emerson met their future wives. Scott was (the case was taken under the name of Sandford in the records by a clerical error of the responsible official ) married Harriet Robinson and Emerson with Irene Sanford. The Scotts returned to Missouri with Emerson in 1842, where Emerson died the following year. John FA Sanford, brother of the widow managed Emerson's estate.
Scott made his application before the court in 1846; in the first instance was negotiated in 1847 a court house in St. Louis before a court of the State of Missouri. His process and attorney fees financed its former owners, the Blow family. They lost in the first trial, but since some of the evidence based on hearsay, the presiding judge granted them a second process. 1850, a jury decided that Scott should be free, under the so-called Missouri doctrine " once free, always free ". The Emerson 's widow appealed. Two years later cashed the Supreme Court of Missouri, the judgment of the lower court on the grounds. " Times are not now as they were when the previous decisions have been made on this topic" The Scotts were therefore again as movable property of their owner classified.
Thereupon brought the Scotts action again, this time in federal court in St. Louis and with new lawyers. When they lost this case, they put a before the Supreme Court of the United States calling. 1857 leaving Chief Justice Roger B. Taney the judgment, with the majority opinion of the view that slaves had no right to liberty that they were property and not free citizens that they were not eligible to apply therefore in federal courts, and that their owners do not likely to be expropriated by the federal government on grounds of residence. The latter principle introduced a de facto repeal of the Missouri Compromise dar.
After the case had been decided, Scott was transferred to its original owner, the Blows. They granted him his freedom less than one and a half years before his death. Dred Scott is buried in the Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.