Chapter 47: The 1857 Dred Scott Ruling Provides Hope for the Southern Cause

Buchanan’s hope for a fast resolution on slavery appears fulfilled in the Dred Scott ruling handed down by the Taney Court just after he is inaugurated.

The case has lingered for eleven years after Scott’s lawyers assert that, under precedents like the “once free, forever free” decision in Lemmon v New York, he was emancipated when his owner took him into the Free State of Minnesota.

When the High Court disagrees by a 7-2 margin, Scott is ordered back into slavery.

But Taney then attempts to close the slavery debate once and for all by writing that Scott had no standing to even appear in court since he is not a citizen under the 1787 Constitution, and, as property, “has no rights which white men are bound to respect.”

He further adds that acts like the Missouri Compromise and Douglas’s call for popular sovereignty elections cannot legally prohibit owners from taking their slaves wherever they want.