The Dred Scott case, decided by the United States Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, held that people of African descent were not citizens of the United States and that Congress had no power to ban slavery in federal territories. Formally cited as Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), the 7–2 ruling was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and is widely regarded as one of the worst decisions in the Court’s history. It was overturned less than a decade later by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.1National Archives. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
Who Dred Scott Was and Why He Sued
Dred Scott was born around 1800 in Virginia and was later owned by Dr. John Emerson, an army surgeon. Emerson’s military postings took Scott to Fort Armstrong in Illinois, a free state, and to Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was banned under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Scott married Harriet Robinson at Fort Snelling, and the couple had two daughters.
After Emerson died in 1843, the Scotts remained under the control of his widow, Irene. In 1846, Dred and Harriet Scott filed freedom suits in a St. Louis court, arguing that their extended residence on free soil had legally ended their enslavement.1National Archives. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) A freedom suit was a recognized legal action in Missouri that let an enslaved person petition a court for liberty, typically on grounds that included having been taken to a jurisdiction where slavery was prohibited.2National Park Service. Freedom Suits
Missouri courts had upheld the principle that an enslaved person taken to live in a free territory or state became free, even after returning to a slave state. But by the time the Scotts’ case reached the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852, the political climate had shifted, and the court reversed its long-standing precedent, ruling that residence in free territory did not make Scott free.3Missouri Secretary of State. Before Dred Scott: Freedom Suits in Antebellum Missouri – History of Freedom Suits Scott refiled in federal court against John F.A. Sanford, Irene Emerson’s brother, who lived in New York. The suit between a Missouri claimant and a New York defendant fit federal diversity jurisdiction, which turned the case on a threshold question: was Scott a citizen at all?4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)
What the Supreme Court Decided
Chief Justice Taney’s majority opinion made two sweeping holdings, either of which would have been enough to end the case on its own.
African Americans Were Not Citizens
The Court held that people of African descent, whether enslaved or free, were not and could never be citizens of the United States under the Constitution. Taney argued that at the time the Constitution was drafted, people of African ancestry were “not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens.'”1National Archives. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) Because Scott was not a citizen, he had no standing to sue in federal court.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)
That finding alone would have disposed of the lawsuit. Courts that determine they lack jurisdiction normally stop there. Taney did not.
The Missouri Compromise Was Unconstitutional
The Court went on to strike down the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery north of the 36°30′ latitude line across the remainder of the Louisiana Territory.5National Archives. Missouri Compromise (1820) It was only the second time in American history that the Supreme Court had struck down a federal law. The first was Marbury v. Madison in 1803.6National Archives. Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Taney reasoned that enslaved people were property protected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of property without due process of law.7Congress.gov. Amdt5.5.1 Overview of Due Process Under that logic, any federal statute freeing enslaved people because their owners crossed into a particular territory amounted to an unconstitutional taking. Congress therefore had no power to ban slavery from any federal territory, and Scott’s years at Fort Snelling changed nothing. His status was governed by Missouri law, which classified him as property.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)
The Dissents
Justices Benjamin Robbins Curtis and John McLean dissented. Curtis attacked the majority for reaching the merits after finding it had no jurisdiction, and challenged Taney’s historical claim, pointing out that several states had recognized Black citizens at the time the Constitution was ratified.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) McLean added that men of African descent already had the right to vote in five states. A person who could vote in a state was a citizen of that state, McLean argued, and a citizen of a state was a citizen of the United States entitled to sue in federal court.
Why the Ruling Mattered
Taney apparently hoped the ruling would settle the slavery question for the country. It had the opposite effect. Abolitionists treated the decision as evidence that the federal government had been captured by Southern slaveholding interests. The young Republican Party made opposition to the ruling a central plank of its platform.
The decision also destabilized the Democratic Party. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois had championed “popular sovereignty” through the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which repealed the Missouri Compromise line and let territorial settlers vote on slavery for themselves.8U.S. Senate. The Kansas-Nebraska Act After Dred Scott, that position was harder to hold: the Court had ruled that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature could ban slavery. Douglas tried to reconcile the two in his 1858 debates with Abraham Lincoln by arguing that a territory could effectively prevent slavery by refusing to pass the local enforcement laws it needed to function, a position known as the Freeport Doctrine.9National Park Service. The Freeport Doctrine The argument helped Douglas keep his Senate seat but split his party. That split contributed to Lincoln’s election in 1860 and to secession the following winter.
What Happened to Dred Scott
Two months after the ruling, Irene Emerson, who had remarried and become Mrs. Calvin Chaffee, transferred the Scott family back to the sons of Peter Blow, Dred Scott’s original owner. The Blow family freed Dred and Harriet Scott in May 1857. Dred Scott lived as a free man for about five months before dying of tuberculosis in September 1857.
How the Reconstruction Amendments Overturned the Decision
The Civil War and its aftermath produced constitutional amendments that directly repudiated the ruling.
The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery. Its text reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”10National Archives. 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery By ending slavery, it destroyed the property-rights foundation of Taney’s Fifth Amendment reasoning.
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, targeted the citizenship holding directly. Its opening line: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”11Congress.gov. Fourteenth Amendment That sentence established birthright citizenship and made it constitutionally impossible for any court to deny citizenship on the basis of race or ancestry. It was written to reverse Dred Scott.
Together, the two amendments did more than overrule the decision as precedent. They rewrote the underlying text of the Constitution so that the reasoning Taney used could never be applied again.