Mug 15oz (Dred Scott)

Dred Scott (born c. 1799, Southampton county, Virginia, U.S.—died September 17, 1858, St. Louis, Missouri) was an African American slave at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal Dred Scott decision of 1857 (Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford).

Scott was born into slavery around 1799 in Southampton County, Virginia12. His original owner, Peter Blow, moved to Alabama in 1818 and then relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1830, taking with him his property—including his slaves—as he moved west1. Blow died in 1832, and Dr. John Emerson, an army surgeon, purchased Scott.

Scott, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 18572. The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal.

In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules2. Scott’s temporary residence in free territory outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation, because the Missouri Compromise, which made that territory free by prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel, was unconstitutional because it “deprives citizens of their [slave] property without due process of law”.

Although Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and congressional authority by this decision, it aroused public outrage, deepened sectional tensions between the northern and southern states, and hastened the eventual explosion of their differences into the American Civil War2. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments—nullified the decision.

The Scotts were manumitted by private arrangement in May 18572. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis a year later2. His case and the subsequent ruling had a profound impact on the history of the United States, and his story continues to be a significant part of American history.