due in 24 hour attached Quiz 5: Define the Key Terms , Concepts, and Personalities Define all of the terms below.  You may use the internet; however, how do yo

Page 59

Thomas Ladenburg, copyright, 1974, 1998, 2001, 2007 [email protected]

Chapter 12
The Controversial Dred Scott Decision

he central question before the nation during the 1850’s was the issue of slavery in the territories. It
was discussed in every town and village, debated on the floor of Congress, and fought out on the soil
of Kansas.

By 1857, positions on slavery in the territories had hardened. A man’s beliefs on this subject were
often influenced by the section of the country in which he lived. Northerners generally believed that
Congress can make a regulation prohibiting slavery in a Territory [but] they can not make a regulation
allowing it.” Westerners held to Stephen Douglas’s belief “that slavery can neither be established nor
prohibited by Congress,” but he believed that people living in territories could make those decisions.
Southerners argued that the Constitution “allows every slave owner
the right to take his property anywhere in the country.”57

Under the American system of government, the Supreme Court
was supposed to be the final arbitrator of any judicial dispute.
Perhaps it was for this reason that the President-elect James Buchanan
was prepared to allow the courts to settle the slavery issue. A case,
ready made to resolve this issue, was before the Court while
Buchanan was writing his inaugural address. In the most important
part of this speech, Buchanan asked his countrymen to suspend their
own opinions, and follow the ruling of the Supreme Court:

It is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme
Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will,
it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in
common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever
this may be. 58

The Dred Scott Case

Buchanan may have been less likely to advise his countrymen accept the Court’s decision if he did
not already know what the Court was about to pronounce. He had corresponded with at least two
members of the Supreme Court. He had urged Robert Grier, a fellow Pennsylvanian, to join the Court’s
majority in the Dred Scott case. Justice Grier’s sympathies, as those of the President-elect, were with the
South on the slavery issue. Four of the remaining justices, including Chief Justice Roger Taney, were from
the South. Only two, John McLean and Benjamin Curtis, were not Democrats.

The facts of the Dred Scott case were complex, but well understood by most Americans who had
followed it with great interest. Dred Scott had been a slave owned by a resident of Missouri, Dr. Emerson.
Between 1834 and 1838, Scott lived with his master in the state of Illinois and in what today is Minnesota.
At that