Dred Scott v. Sandford

US History: Spiconardi

The Issues

 Could the Supreme Court rule on the matter?

 Did the lower courts have the right to hear and determine the case between Scott and Sanford?

The Courts Opinion

 The Courts had no jurisdiction to hear this case because…  Blacks are not citizens  Only citizens have the right to bring forth a legal case  The lower courts should not have ruled on the matter

Chief Justice Roger Brooke Tawney

 “The African race in the united states even when free, are everywhere a degraded class, and exercise no political influence. The privileges they are allowed to enjoy, are accorded to them as a matter of kindness and benevolence rather than right…They are not looked upon as citizens by the contracting parties who formed the Constitution. They were evidently not supposed to be included by the term citizens.”

Chief Justice Roger Tawney’s Opinion of the Court  Blacks are "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Chief Justice Roger Tawney’s Opinion of the Court  "It would give to persons of the negro race, …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

Impact of the Decision

    Abolitionist and Northerner believe the “Slave Power” infiltrated the Supreme Court  Strengthened Southern power in government Missouri Compromise nullified Strengthened opposition to slavery in the North Many believed it settled the issue of slavery once and for all