Illinois Hall of Fame: Dred Scott
July 4 is a day to celebrate the freedom of America. One hundred and seventy years ago there was a man who only lived in Illinois for less than three years and who could not read or write. But he nevertheless would one day file a law suit based on his residence in Illinois that led to America's worst war but also helped set the stage for millions of his fellow Americans to become free.
Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia in 1799. His master was Peter Blow who took Scott with him to Missouri in 1830. Ten years before that In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise that allowed for the admission of Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state thus preserving a balance of free and slave states. But the law also provided that other lands of the United States acquired by the purchase of the territory of Louisiana from France, and that lied north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north lattitude, could not be admitted to the Union in the future as a slave state. All such territory north of that line would prohibit slavery. The North West Ordinance of 1789 had also provided for northern states to be free of slavery and that law meant that when Illinois entered the Union on Dec. 3, 1818, it came in as a free state. In 1832, Peter Blow died and the Blow family, "sold" Dred Scott to Dr. John Emmerson, a surgeon in the US Army.
In 1833, Dr. Emmerson took Scott with him to serve at Fort Armstrong in what is now Rock Island County, Illinois near the town of Stephenson (now Rock Island) at the confluence of the Mississippi River with the mouth of the Rock River. Thus, Scott, even though he was a slave, was neverthless then living in a free state where slavery was not supposed to be legal. Scott lived in Illinois until 1836 and next moved with Emmerson to Fort Snelling in what would become Wisconsin which was also free territory. In Wisconsin, Scott married another slave Harriet who was transferred to Emmerson and the couple had two daughters. Wisconsin eventually came into the Union as the 30th state, and a free state, in 1848. Unfortunately for Scott, local prosecutors were often reluctant to bring cases against defendants such as Dr. Emmerson for owning a slave in a free state. After 10 years away from Missouri, Dr. Emmerson and his wife returned to Missouri with the Scotts. Dr. Emmerson died in 1843. Mrs. Emmerson hired Scott, his wife and children out to work for other families in St. Louis as a source of income for her. Scott asked Mrs. Emmerson if he could buy freedom for his family for $300 but she refused his offer.
In 1846, Dred and Harriet Scott sued Mrs. Emmerson for their freedom on the basis of their time in the free state of Illinois and other free territory in the north. In 1847 the Circuit Court of St. Louis, a state court, ruled against Scott on a technicality and found in favor of the defendant Mrs. Emmerson but the court also allowed the Scotts to file a second time which they did in 1850. A jury in the second trial of 1850 found that the Scott family deserved to be free based on their time in the free state of Illinois and what was by now the state of Wisconsin. Mrs. Emmerson did not want to lose such valuable "property" and her source of income and she appealed the lower court decision to the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mrs. Emmerson so in 1853 and 1854, pro-abolitionist attorneys took Scott's case to the federal district court. This time the defendant was Mr. Standford, the brother of Mrs. Emmerson, who was managing the estate of the late Dr. Emmerson for his sister. Scott then appealed the matter to federal court because he claimed that he and Standford and Mrs. Emmerson were citizens of different states. The federal district court also ruled against Scott and the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1856, seven of the nine Supreme Court justices had been appointed by pro-slavery Presidents and five of them came from slave-holding families. But among the federal issues before the court were, was Scott a citizen with standing to sue in court? Also, did the Supreme Court have jurisdiction to review the case? In short, were federal issues involved?
In 1857, The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Scott v. Sandford 60 U.S. 393 (1857). The vote was 7 to 2 in favor of keeping Scott a slave. In a bizarre reversal of normal practice, Chief Justice Roger B. Tanney waited several months after the publication of the dissenting opinions to publish his own majority opinion for the court. Tanney held that Scott did not have standing to sue in either state or federal courts because he was not a citizen. Worse, Tanney argued that no Negro, whether slave of freed, could ever have standing to sue in federal court. Tanney cited no provision of the Constitution to justify his opinion. And finally worse yet, Tanney ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was held unconsitutional because the Congress had no power to deprive citizens of their "property" without due process.
The implication of the ruling by Tanney, who was from Maryland, was that Negroes could only be property and never persons within the meaning of the Constitution even if they were freed. Chief Justice Tanney's ruling infuriated abolitionists in the north and leaders of the new Republican Party. Apart from the impact on the Scotts, it was of little immediate practical effect since Sen. Stenphen Douglas (D-Illinois) had already passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 that also nullified the Missouri Compromise and President Buchanan had signed that bill. But the combination of the Dred Scott decision, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the publication of the best-selling book Uncle Tom's Cabin by abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 all had a dramatic impact in changing public opinion forever in the north toward the institution of slavery and polarized opinion in the south.
There are many ironies in the Dred Scott case. First, Scott's legal fees were paid by two sons of Scott's former mater Peter Blow. The young men had been childhood friends of Scott while he was a slave. The same year the U.S. Supreme Court made it decision against Scott, Mrs. Emmerson remarried. Her new husband was strongly opposed to slavery so Mrs. Emmerson sold the Scotts to the two sons of Peter Blow, the same family that had originally sold Scott to the late Dr. Emmerson many years before. If the Blow family had never sold Scott, he never would have lived in free territory. Even more ironic, Dred Scott and his family were then given their freedom by the two sons of Peter Blow. After only nine months as a free man, Dred Scott died of tuberculosis on Sept. 17, 1858 at the age of 59. The passions and issues raised by the Dred Scott case greatly influenced the elections of 1858 when the new Republican Party for the first time won a plurality of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives even though pro-slavery President James Buchanan was still in office for two more years. The Dred Scott case also helped to influenced the bulk of abolitionists and Free Soil Party organizers to get behind the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to be the Republican nominee for President in 1860.
Dred Scott is buried in Wesleyan Cemetery in a location that is now part of the campus of St. Louis University. Due to the disinterment and relocation of some bodies in 1867, the grave of Dred Scott was not marked for almost ninety years. In 1957, on the 100th Anniversary of the infamous Dred Scott decision, a new marker was put on Scott's grave. It reads as follows:
"DRED SCOTT BORN ABOUT 1799 DIED SEPT. 17, 1858
DRED SCOTT SUBJECT OF THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1857 WHICH DENIED CITIZENSHIP TO THE NEGRO, VOIDED THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ACT, BECAME ONE OF THE EVENTS THAT RESULTED IN THE CIVIL WAR"
