”The Scott Dred Decision” was the result of Scott Dread attempt to become a free man. He was a slave that was brought to Kansas from Missouri by his owner. Scott Dred claimed that, because a former owner had brought him to a free state for a several years, he was entitled his freedom. This was perhaps the most significant ruling in U.S judicial history. The court rejected Scott’s appeal, referring it to that African American doesn’t have any rights under the Constitution.
Legally, in Illinois Dred was free to claim his freedom. In October 1837, Dr. John Emerson had been transferred to St. Louis, Missouri where he had left Dred and his wife Harriet behind to be hired by another master. This was Illegal under the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri was allowed to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine was to enter the Union as a free state. The Compromise also drew an imaginary line at 36 degrees parallel.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee passed laws requiring railroads to separate the races. Mississippi and South Carolina already denied the vote to Blacks and many other states were preparing to take the same steps. The 14th amendment plays a viable role in both Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education. While the 13th abolished slavery and the 15th established the right to suffrage, it was the 14th, which supposedly guaranteed civil rights. The requirements of section 1 of the 14th Amendment left much of the jurisdictional issues (intentionally) vague as to the limits of federal and state laws.
1. Sarah and Angelina Grimke grew up in South Carolina on a slave plantation, and as they got older rejected the southern lifestyle and moved up north to advocate for the abolitionist movement and women’s rights. 2. The Nullification Crisis occurred in 1828 after The Tariff of Abominations put a tariff on imported goods; South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union. The tariff benefited the north but hurt the south.
In 1831, Thomas Jennings became assistant secretary for the First Annual Convention of the People of Color in Philadelphia, PA. Thomas Jennings was a free man when he took out his patent, otherwise he might have had trouble obtaining the patent in his name. For instance, in 1857, a slave-owner named Oscar Stuart patented a "double cotton scraper" invented by his slave, Ned, arguing, "the master is the owner of the fruits of the labor of the slave both manual and intellectual". Initially, he U.S. patent office changed the patent laws in favor of Oscar Stuart, but in 1870, the U.S. government passed a patent law giving all American men, including African Americans, the rights to their inventions. Most slaves in the Southern states of the USA were denied education. The slave owners were afraid of slave rebellions occurring if slaves had access to texts based on enlightenment thinking, like Thomas Paine's "the Rights of Man".
He had spent his entire life as a slave and couldn’t read or write. Dred Scott moved to St. Louis with the Blows in 1830, but soon he was sold due to his master’s financial problems. He was then purchased by Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon stationed at Jefferson Barracks and accompanied him to posts in Illinois and the Wisconsin territories; slavery was prohibited by the Missouri compromise of 1820. During this time, Dred Scott got married to another slave and had two children. In 1842, the Scotts moved with the Emerson’s to St. Louis.
The constitution of 1836 legally allowed slavery in the state of Texas and by 1845 when the constitution was once again revised, Texas was admitted as a slave state. Sixteen years later, in 1861, slavery was written in the constitutions as being maintained in the state of Texas. Finally, in 1866, some of the rights of former slaves were recognized. The rights of former slaves were not recognized when involving white citizens. Also, there were no voting rights for former slaves.
Lincoln tried to appease the South who hadn’t voted for him by saying that he wouldn’t interfere with slavery where it already existed, this however, for the states who hadn’t voted for him, wasn’t enough. Jefferson Davis was also born in Kentucky; he graduated from West point military academy and served in the US army before most notably becoming a cotton planter in Mississippi (which mainly relied on Slaves). Davis then sat in the US House of Representatives before resigning to take part in the Mexican War. Afterwards he then became US senate and afterwards served as Secretary of War from 1853-57. Davis was a military man who had hoped for a high place in the Confederate army but was voted
No state will have the power the case deny anyone of these rights. However, years before this in 1849 in the case Roberts vs. The City of Boston, Massachusetts established the constitutionally of “separate but equal.” This court found that “separate but equal” does not violate one’s violate civil rights. Although in 1855 Massachusetts passed a variety of laws undoing this decision, Southern states ran with this idea. In 1870, Tennessee creates a series of laws based on racial segregation which spreads throughout the South.
Causes of Disunion in the United States In the late 17 and 1800s, the United States began to split between the North and the South. The North and the South had many conflicting views, but their contrasting views over slavery were the most significant motives for the beginning of the Civil War and disunion of the early United States. After the western territory was claimed by the U.S., everyone had a vision of what could be. The Southerners wanted to keep their “southern way of life”, while the people of the north saw a future of hope and one where western homesteads would not improve if they were full of cultivated plantations ran by numerous enslaved workers. People all over the country felt that the deciding factor for freeing slaves would affect their own lives.