"Blacks Are Not Citizens" — The Dred Scott Decision (1857)

The Lawsuit

Dred Scott was a slave. His owner, an army surgeon, had taken him to live in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory — both places where slavery was prohibited.

When they returned to Missouri, a slave state, Scott filed suit.

"I lived on free soil. I am a free man."

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The Ruling

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney read the Supreme Court's decision.

"A Black man is not a 'citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution."

"Therefore he has no right to file suit in federal court."

And then Taney went further.

"Congress has no constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in the territories."

Seven to two. Dred Scott lost.

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The Fallout

The North was furious. The ruling created a legal pathway for slavery to spread across the entire country.

The Missouri Compromise — the 1820 agreement that had drawn a line between slave and free states — was struck down in an instant.

Lincoln seized on the ruling. He used it in his debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858 and throughout his 1860 presidential campaign.

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Dred Scott's End

Shortly after the ruling, his former owner's son freed him.

Dred Scott became a free man. He worked as a porter at a hotel in St. Louis.

Fifteen months later, he died of tuberculosis.

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Decision: March 6, 1857 | Result: 7–2 against Scott | Freed: May 1857 | Died: September 1858