Dred Scott decision (redirected from Dred Scott v. Sandford)

Dred Scott decision

 formally Dred Scott v. Sandford

1857 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that made slavery legal in all U.S. territories. Scott was a slave whose master had taken him in 1834 from a slave state (Missouri) to a free state and a free territory, then back to Missouri. Scott sued for his freedom in Missouri in 1846, claiming his residence in a free state and a free territory made him free. The opinion of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that Scott was not entitled to rights as a U.S. citizen and, in fact, had “no rights which any white man was bound to respect”. Taney and six other justices struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional, maintaining that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories (see states' rights). The decision, a clear victory for the South, increased Northern antislavery sentiment, strengthened the new Republican Party, and fed the sectional strife that led to war in 1861.

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Dred Scott decision

controversial ruling stating that Negroes were not entitled to “equal justice.” [Am. Hist.: Payton, 203]

See : Equality