Dred Scott v. Sandford

1
Dred Scott v. Sandford
2
The Issues

• Could the Supreme Court rule on the matter?
• Did the lower courts have the right to hear and
  determine the case between Scott and Sanford?

3
The Courts Opinion

• The Courts had no jurisdiction to hear this case
  because
• Blacks are not citizens
• Only citizens have the right to bring forth a
  legal case
• The lower courts should not have ruled on the
  matter

4
Chief Justice Roger Brooke Tawney

• The African race in the united states even when
  free, are everywhere a degraded class, and
  exercise no political influence. The privileges
  they are allowed to enjoy, are accorded to them
  as a matter of kindness and benevolence rather
  than rightThey are not looked upon as citizens
  by the contracting parties who formed the
  Constitution. They were evidently not supposed
  to be included by the term citizens.

5
Chief Justice Roger Tawneys Opinion of the Court

• Blacks are "beings of an inferior order, and
  altogether unfit to associate with the white
  race, either in social or political relations,
  and so far inferior that they had no rights which
  the white man was bound to respect."

6
Chief Justice Roger Tawneys Opinion of the Court

• "It would give to persons of the negro race, the
  right to enter every other State whenever they
  pleased, the full liberty of speech in public
  and in private upon all subjects upon which its
  own citizens might speak to hold public meetings
  upon political affairs, and to keep and carry
  arms wherever they went."

7
Impact of the Decision

• Abolitionist and Northerner believe the Slave
  Power infiltrated the Supreme Court
• Strengthened Southern power in government
• Missouri Compromise nullified
• Strengthened opposition to slavery in the North
• Many believed it settled the issue of slavery
  once and for all