The Dred Scott Case.

1. Dred Scott Case

Dred Scott was a man who seemed consistent with society's definition of a black slave. However, this was not true for he was an articulate man who changed our society and American standards. In 1799 Dred Scott was born in Virginia as a slave of the Peter Blow family. He spent his life as a slave, and never learned to read or write. In 1830 the Blow family moved to St. Louis, part of the migration of people from the southern states of the eastern seaboard to the newer slave states of the Mississippi Valley. The Blows sold Dred Scott to Dr. John Emerson, a military surgeon stationed at Jefferson Barracks just south of St. Louis. Over the next twelve years Scott accompanied Emerson to posts in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where Congress prohibited slavery under the rules of the Missouri Compromise. During that time, Scott married Harriet Robinson, also a slave.

Dred Scott, whose famous case to gain his freedom ...

Portrait of Roger Brooke Taney

De Bow's Review

The Scotts later had four children. The Scotts were not alone in their movement. as slaves were constantly on the move, either forced to accompany their masters or sold as part of the ever-widening domestic slave trade. Slave states and free states, which had previously respected one another's laws on slavery, became increasingly hesitant to enforce those laws as the argument over the expansion of slavery became increasingly heated. Slaveholders expressed particular opposition to legal precedents that permitted slaves to demand their own freedom after being transported to places (whether other states or foreign countries) that prohibited slavery. In 1842 the Scott family returned to St. Louis with Dr. Emerson and his wife Irene. He had now become a husband and father of four children. Dred Scott wanted to provide his family with a sense of dignity and decency that only a free...