Tag: Case’

How Would You Sum Up The Overall Court Case Of Dred Scott V. Sanford (1856)?

 - by sanford

1. The Compromises of 1820 and 1850 were null and void. Remember
the supreme court ruled that slaves were property and thus allowed
to be taken anywhere their masters wished to take them. This
made the old 36* 30 * line for slavery illegal and the idea of Popular
Sovereignty, the idea that the people should decide by popular vote
whether or not they should have slavery, to be illegal. Theoretically
you could take your slave anywhere.
2. The same idea applies to the Kansas Nebraska Act. This law was
illegal. Slavery could go anywhere.
3. The Abolitionists and the Northern States ignored this decision and
there were no legal attempts by the Southern States to force
Northern to accept slaves. The South pointed out that the North
ignore laws they did not like, they were correct and this increased
the radicals in the South to call for succession from the Union.
Anyway Dred Scott did get his freedom because his owner had
promised him hid freedom before the case was brought to court.
Hope that helps. Packers.

How Did The Abolitionist Movement And The Dred Scott Vs Sanford Case Contribute 2 The Coming Of The Civil War?

 - by sanford

Let’s go all the way back to the birth of the Constitution. Congressional seats are apportioned according to population, but the northern states wanted to exclude slaves from the census, hence the Massachusetts Compromise counting slaves as 3/5 of a man. Without this odd count, Virginia would have had huge political clout. And the southern political disadvantage worsened with time. Then comes the abolitionist movement, threatening the economy of the southern states. I have never seen anything that suggests the abolitionists ever offered to pay for the property of the slave-holders, as is required in the Constitution, much less any proposals to ease the economic burdens of a transition. The abolitionists were talking about ethics, and the south were talking about law, previous agreements, and economic survival. Both sides were wrong, and neither would admit it. Dred Scott was just another inflammatory point in a long slide to the tragedy of the war.