Dred Scott Presentation created by Robert Martinez Primary Content Source: America’s History Images as cited. kilobooks.wordpress.com

In 1856, the Supreme Court had considered the case of Dred Scott v In 1856, the Supreme Court had considered the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, which raised the constitutional issue of Congress’s constitutional authority to regular slavery in the territories. supremecourthistory.org

Dred Scott was an enslaved African American who had loved for a time with his owner, an army surgeon, in the free state of Illinois and at Fort Snelling, then in the Wisconsin Territory, where the Northwest Ordinance (1787) prohibited slavery.

Seeking freedom for himself and his family, Scott claimed in his suit that residence in a free state and a free territory had made him free. allposters.com

Hoping naively that a strong pro-slavery decision would settle the issue of slavery in the territories, President Buchanan pressured several northern judges to vote in tandem with their southern colleagues. thecitrusreport.com

In the Court’s decision, handed down in 1857, seven of the nine members of the Court agreed that Scott was still a slave; but the members of the majority were unable to agree on the legal issues, and each judge wrote a separate opinion. scoopweb.com/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland, a slave owner himself, composed the most influential opinion. He declared that Negroes, whether enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States, and the Scott therefore had no right to sue in federal court. kurtfstone.typepad.com

That argument was controversial: Free blacks were citizens in many states, which presumably gave them access to the federal courts. But then Taney proceeded to make two even more controversial points. emergingcivilwar.com

First, he endorsed John C First, he endorsed John C. Calhoun’s argument: Because the Fifth Amendment prohibited “takings” of property without due process of law, Taney ruled that Congress could not deny southern citizens the right to take their slave property into the territories and own it there. etc.usf.edu

Consequently, the chief justice concluded, the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise that prohibited slavery had never been constitutional. savagesandscoundrels.org

Second, Taney declared that Congress could not give to territorial governments any powers that Congress itself did not possess. Because Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in a territory, neither did a territorial government. printsoldandrare.com

Calhoun’s interpretation of popular sovereignty: Only when settlers wrote a constitution and requested statehood could they prohibit slavery. In a single stroke, Taney and the Democrat-dominated Supreme Court had declared the Republicans’ antislavery platform to be unconstitutional. Senator John C. Calhoun South Carolina

Republicans could never accept the legitimacy of that decision Republicans could never accept the legitimacy of that decision. Led by Senator Seward of New York, they accused the Supreme Court and President Buchanan of participating in the Slave Power conspiracy. poorwilliam.net

Buchanan then added fuel to the raging constitutional fire Buchanan then added fuel to the raging constitutional fire. In early 1858, he recommended the admission of Kansas as a slave state under a constitution written by the proslavery Lecompton legislature, although the legitimacy of the constitution was widely questioned. kansasmemory.org

Angered that Buchanan would not permit a popular referendum on the Lecompton constitution, Stephen Douglas, the most influential Democratic senator, broke with the president and persuaded Congress to deny statehood to Kansas. (* Kansas would enter the Union as a free state in 1861.) freethoughtalmanac.com

By pursuing a proslavery agenda, first in the Dred Scott decision and then in Kansas, Buchanan had widened the split in his party and the nation. belthorne2011.blogspot.com