LAD #18

Chief Justice Roger Taney's Decision in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford Supreme Count case 

When the court met for the first time since the reargument to discuss the case, it favored a moderate decision in favor of Sanford, but did not consider the larger issue of Negro citizenship and the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise.  In the final decision, it seems the two most antislavery justices may have forced a more proslavery opinion than originally planned.

President-elect James Buchanan needed to know the court’s decision so he would know what to say about the territorial issue in his inaugural address on March 4, 1857.  He took the opportunity to throw his support to the Court.

Two days after Buchanan’s inauguration, Chief Justice Taney read their decision.  He first addressed the question of Negro citizenship, slave and free blacks:  Taney’s opinion stated that Negroes, even free Negroes, were not citizens of the Unites States, and that therefore Scott did not even have the privilege of being able to sue in a federal court.  On the question of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise:  Taney reasoned that the Missouri Compromise derived slaveholding citizens of their property in the form of slaves and that therefore the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. 

Scott’s last hope was that the Chief Justice could decide that Scott was free because of his stay in the free state of Illinois.  Taney made no such decision.  Scott had brought suit in Missouri and hence he was still a slave because Missouri was a slave state.

 Photo2: later in the 1800's the supreme court was still ruling against the complete equality of African Americans.