Reference no: EM133297717

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857

The Constitution does not consider slaves to be U.S. citizens. Rather, they are constitutionally protected property of their masters."

Chief Justice Roger Taney authored this opinion- one of the most important and scorned in the nation's history.

Dred Scott, a slave, had moved with his master to Illinois, a free state. He moved again to a slave state, Missouri, and filed suit to gain freedom, under that state's law of "Once free, always free." Taney held that Scott had never been free at all, and cited Constitutional grounds for placing the slavery decision in the hands of the states. In trying to put an end to the slavery controversy, Taney instead sped the nation toward civil war. The decision was later overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment.