Dred Scott Case

Throughout history there have been very few court cases that have divided the nation by a single decision like the Dred Scott Case. This controversial case affected the US greatly leading up to the Civil War and had an immense part in shaping the country as it is today. The Dred Scott Decision was a pivotal case which started as Dred Scott seeking to gain his freedom, and amplified into a mass affair. The death of Scott's former owner drove him to try and buy his freedom from his owners heirs, unfortunately this attempt was unsuccessful. Aspiring to be a free man, Scott took his case to the courts, the case of Dred v Stanford would go down as "a major turning point in American Slavery" (Corwin 52).

In order to gain insight on the case, it is pertinent to understand the life that Dred Scott lived. Scott was born into slavery in 1795 in Southampton County, Virginia. As property of slave owner Peter Blow, Scott was able to travel with the Blow family when they relocated from Huntsville, Alabama to St. Louis Missouri. In 1832, after the death of Peter Blow, Scott was sold to John Emerson, a doctor who was serving in the US army. As John Emerson's body servant or valet, Scott was able to travel to places such as Fort Armstrong at Rock Island in Illinois and Wisconsin where he spent nearly a dozen years. While traveling through these "free" territories, Dred Scott met a slave from Virginia by the name of Harriet Robinson. In 1836 Robinson's owner Major Lawrence Taliaferro, an Indian agent and justice if the peace, married her to Dred Scott and transferred her ownership over to Dr. Emerson so the two could remain together. Throughout the next several decades the Scotts were transferred to various states. In the process they gave birth to two children, Eliza and Lizzie Scott. This is around the time that Mr. Scott changed his name from Sam to Dred and his master, John Emerson married Irene Sanford in Louisiana.

In 1843 John Emerson passed away, and Dred Scott and his family were hired out by Mrs. John Emerson to work for other families in St. Louis. Then on April 6, 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom, although it is unclear why he didn't do so while he was living in free territories. Nonetheless with the financial help of the Blow family, the support of John Anderson, the Scotts' minister, and two lawyers Scott filed a petition with the St. Louis courts in a trial which would, "span the next eleven years" (Washington University Gateway). Although Scott did not win the case, he was granted a second trial by the ruling judge to hearsay evidence, so three years later he went back to trial. This trial seemed to be a complete turnaround from the first. "This time a jury decided the Scotts should have their freedom because they did live in free states for certain amount of time, so under the Missouri doctrine of "once free, always free"