Latest / Creating America / Episode 26: Dred Scott: The Supreme Court’s Most Infamous Decision
Transcript
- Well, we’re back. Today we are going to look at a court case that not only had huge implications for the African community in the United States, but is also a stain on our collective history. Dredd Scott. Lets go. Welcome to the Creating America Podcast, where we are reading through some of the documents and speeches that shaped the United States I’m Will Sarris. I’m an actor and media professional and I’ve always loved the study of history. At one point I realized that often I know ABOUT various speeches and documents that shaped the history of the US, but I haven’t actually read them. Maybe you’re in the same position? Well, I’m a voice actor, so here I hope I can not only read you the text, but make it come alive. Many of these documents and speeches are well known, others you’ve probably never heard of. Some are inspirational, others will probably shock you. As I have stated before, I’m interested in and have studied history over my lifetime, but I am not a historian. I won’t comment too much on these texts, other than to provide a little context. And I’ll try to point you to good historians who can help you out if you want to delve deeper. Additionally, the country has always benefited from a diversity of opinions, and that should be reflected here. So I’ll try to bring you texts from many different sources when I can. We’re proceeding somewhat chronologically through American history, but I’m sure I’ll miss a document of speech you want to hear. If you want to contact me, you can email CreatingAmericaPod@gmail.com and you can interact with me on social media. On Threads, Instagram and Facebook we are “Creating America Pod” and you can also contact me directly many apps. My handle is “williamsarris” one word. And you can subscribe on Patreon at patreon.com/williamsarris. It is my hope that as you listen to these documents and speeches you will gain an appreciation of what our country was, what it is, and what it hopes to be. Few decisions in American history have had consequences as profound or tragic as Dred Scott v. Sandford, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. Dred Scott was born into slavery around 1799 in Virginia. He was later owned by Dr. John Emerson, a U.S. Army surgeon whose military assignments took him to several locations where slavery was prohibited by law, including the free state of Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory. Under legal doctrines recognized in some jurisdictions at the time, enslaved people who were taken to live in free territory could, under certain circumstances, claim that they had become free. After Emerson's death, Scott and his wife Harriet, who was also enslaved, sued for their freedom in Missouri state court in 1846. Their case would wind through the courts for more than a decade. They initially won their freedom, only to have the decision reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court. Eventually, the case reached the United States Supreme Court. By the time the Court heard the case, the nation was already bitterly divided over the expansion of slavery into the western territories. The admission of new states, the balance of power between free and slave states, and the future of slavery itself had become the defining political issues of the era. Many hoped the Supreme Court would settle these disputes. Instead, the Court delivered one of the most controversial opinions in American history. Writing for a seven-justice majority, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled not only against Dred Scott's claim to freedom, but also declared that people of African descent—whether enslaved or free—were not citizens of the United States as the Constitution was understood by its framers and therefore could not sue in federal court. The Court further held that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in the federal territories, effectively declaring the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. The decision was celebrated by many supporters of slavery and condemned throughout much of the North. Rather than resolving the national crisis, it intensified it. Historians widely regard Dred Scott v. Sandford as one of the major events that hastened the coming of the Civil War just four years later. After the war, the legal foundations of the decision were overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which established birthright citizenship and guaranteed equal protection under the law. Today, Dred Scott v. Sandford is remembered not as a model of constitutional interpretation, but as a cautionary example of how the Supreme Court can fail to uphold the principles of justice and equality. We are going to now hear excerpts from this opinion, starting with an excerpt from Chief Justice Taney’s Majority Opinion, and then two excerpts from dissenting opinions in the case. Next episode, we will hear what Frederick Douglass had to say about this decision in a speech he gave in May of 1857. ---------- Exerpt: Majority Opinion, Chief Justice Taney It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as 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; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. . . . [I]t is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration, for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted…. [I]f persons of the African race are citizens of a State, and of the United States, they would be entitled to all of these privileges and immunities in every State, and the State could not restrict them . . . . And these rights are of a character and would lead to consequences which make it absolutely certain that the African race were not included under the name of citizens of a State, and were not in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution when these privileges and immunities were provided for the protection of the citizen in other States. . . . No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that, upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous. . . . [T]he power of Congress over the person or property of a citizen can never be a mere discretionary power under our Constitution and form of Government. The powers of the Government and the rights and privileges of the citizen are regulated and plainly defined by the Constitution itself. And when the Territory becomes a part of the United States, the Federal Government enters into possession in the character impressed upon it by those who created it. It enters upon it with its powers over the citizen strictly defined, and limited by the Constitution, from which it derives its own existence and by virtue of which alone it continues to exist and act as a Government and sovereignty. It has no power of any kind beyond it, and it cannot, when it enters a Territory of the United States, put off its character and assume discretionary or despotic powers which the Constitution has denied to it. It cannot create for itself a new character separated from the citizens of the United States and the duties it owes them under the provisions of the Constitution. The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their respective rights defined and marked out, and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or property beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved. A reference to a few of the provisions of the Constitution will illustrate this proposition. For example, no one, we presume, will contend that Congress can make any law in a Territory respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people of the Territory peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances. . . . These powers, and others in relation to rights of person which it is not necessary here to enumerate, are, in express and positive terms, denied to the General Government, and the rights of private property have been guarded with equal care. Thus, the rights of property are united with the rights of person, and placed on the same ground by the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offence against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law. . . . [T]he right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guarantied to the citizens of the United States in every State that might desire it for twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words – too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights. Excerpt: Dissent, Justice McLean There is no averment in this plea which shows or conduces to show an inability in the plaintiff to sue in the Circuit Court. It does not allege that the plaintiff had his domicil in any other State, nor that he is not a free man in Missouri. He is averred to have had a negro ancestry, but this does not show that he is not a citizen of Missouri, within the meaning of the act of Congress authorizing him to sue in the Circuit Court. It has never been held necessary, to constitute a citizen within the act, that he should have the qualifications of an elector. Females and minors may sue in the Federal courts, and so may any individual who has a permanent domicil in the State under whose laws his rights are protected, and to which he owes allegiance. Being born under our Constitution and laws, no naturalization is required, as one of foreign birth, to make him a citizen. The most general and appropriate definition of the term citizen is ‘a freeman.’ Being a freeman, and having his domicil in a State different from that of the defendant, he is a citizen within the act of Congress, and the courts of the Union are open to him. . . . Our independence was a great epoch in the history of freedom, and while I admit the Government was not made especially for the colored race, yet many of them were citizens of the New England States, and exercised, the rights of suffrage when the Constitution was adopted . . . Excerpt: Dissent, Justice Curtis To determine whether any free persons, descended from Africans held in slavery, were citizens of the United States under the Confederation, and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such persons were citizens of either of the States under the Confederation, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens. . . . That Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, or those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon, in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of that State. . . . It would be strange, if we were to find in that instrument anything which deprived of their citizenship any part of the people of the United States who were among those by whom it was established. I can find nothing in the Constitution which, proprio vigore, deprives of their citizenship any class of persons who were citizens of the United States at the time of its adoption, or who should be native-born citizens of any State after its adoption; nor any power enabling Congress to disfranchise persons born on the soil of any State, and entitled to citizenship of such State by its Constitution and laws. And my opinion is, that, under the Constitution of the United States, every free person born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen of that State by force of its Constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States. . . . One may confine the right of suffrage to white male citizens; another may extend it to colored persons and females; one may allow all persons above a prescribed age to convey property and transact business; another may exclude married women. But whether native-born women, or persons under age, or under guardianship because insane or spendthrifts, be excluded from voting or holding office, or allowed to do so, I apprehend no one will deny that they are citizens of the United States. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creating America, where we read the documents and speeches that shaped the United States as we know it today. I’m Will Sarris, your host and narrator. This show is written and produced by me. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate the show and share it with your friends. I’ve also started a Patreon, patreon.com/williamsarris, where you can support this project, which is something I do on my own time. Anything you can contribute is appreciated! If you’d like to send in a comment or request that I read a speech or document you think I missed, the email is CreatingAmericaPod@gmail.com. You can find the show on social media by searching CreatingAmerica, and you can find me there too. If you want to know more about what I do professionally, visit my website williamsarris.net. Till next time! Copyright 2026 William Sarris All rights reserved.