Lambertson then attempted to draw a parallel between
Dred Scott and Standing Bear.
The
Dred Scott decision reflected the conundrum that states' rights southerners confronted in the face of the abolitionist surge; while they insisted that slavery was a local institution, the sanctity of slave property in the territories might require the federal government, as common agent for the states, to intervene.
Parents who live in the shadows of the law, unlike Wong Kim Ark's parents, and
Dred Scott's parents, cannot be assumed to be loyal to the United States.
To be sure,
Dred Scott's due process might be read to have protected liberty as well as property, specifically implicating a right to travel.
Instead of deriving "
Dred Scott II" from the workings of an active conspiracy, he made it the conclusion of a syllogism:
2 The
Dred Scott decision: "Instead of saying once set free, always set free, the Supreme Court said that blacks are not persons, and therefore cannot file lawsuits and enjoy no protection of the law."
In general, Powe is quite harsh in his treatment of the abortion cases and surprisingly gentle on
Dred Scott. But it would be wrong to think of him as the Rush Limbaugh of legal scholarship.
When the Scotts finally gained their freedom in May 1857-11 years after they filed suit--it was granted not from the courts but from a relative of
Dred Scott's original owner.
(19) Taney's approach in
Dred Scott, however, was counterfeit originalism.
The Supreme Court delivered the
Dred Scott Decision, which declared that slaves could not be U.S.
Ironically, Taney had manumitted most of his slaves and was opposed to slavery when he led the Court in the fateful
Dred Scott decision of 1857.
In 1856, the Supreme Court heard the first of two arguments in
Dred Scott v.
