![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic, to your lj. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.)
Dred Scott v. Sandford
A complicated story of a slave sold to a Doctor Emerson who took him to Illinois, a free state, to live. When the doctor died his widow remarried and moved to Missouri where Scott was originally from. Scott sued the executor of the doctor's estate, saying that having lived in a free state he was no longer property to be included in the doctor's estate. The Southern dominated Supreme Court of the time decided that as a slave Scott was not entitled to the right to sue, basically declaring him and all other slaves non-persons, and the suit was thrown out, leaving Scott as property. The widow Emerson's new husband was, in fact, an abolitionist and both them were eager to end the matter. It was arranged that Scott was returned to his owners before his purchase by the doctor. These original owners set him free.
Dred Scott was actually the given name of this person's older brother, and he took the name when the original Dred died.
According to Wikipedia, Sandford was confined to an insane assylum while the case was making its way through the courts.
The case was argued before the Supreme Court, not in Washington, but in St. Louis in what is now known as the Old Courthouse, a short walk from the Gateway Arch, both a part of the National Expansion Memorial.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
A complicated story of a slave sold to a Doctor Emerson who took him to Illinois, a free state, to live. When the doctor died his widow remarried and moved to Missouri where Scott was originally from. Scott sued the executor of the doctor's estate, saying that having lived in a free state he was no longer property to be included in the doctor's estate. The Southern dominated Supreme Court of the time decided that as a slave Scott was not entitled to the right to sue, basically declaring him and all other slaves non-persons, and the suit was thrown out, leaving Scott as property. The widow Emerson's new husband was, in fact, an abolitionist and both them were eager to end the matter. It was arranged that Scott was returned to his owners before his purchase by the doctor. These original owners set him free.
Dred Scott was actually the given name of this person's older brother, and he took the name when the original Dred died.
According to Wikipedia, Sandford was confined to an insane assylum while the case was making its way through the courts.
The case was argued before the Supreme Court, not in Washington, but in St. Louis in what is now known as the Old Courthouse, a short walk from the Gateway Arch, both a part of the National Expansion Memorial.