Dred Scott Decision: The Role of Supreme Court and Political Parties

Dred Scott is a person I have heard of growing up, but never really in truly paid his information any mind. That the decision of Dred Scott was referred to the Dred v. Sandford case by the United States Supreme Courts. I always put in my head that blacks never had anything to do with the courts. The Supreme Court was rude in their ruling that if a person was African descent that was brought to the United States as a slave had no rights. That the African descents had no protection under the constitution either. The African descents could not even be concerned an American. The courts went even further with their power when they give the Congress no power to say or forbid slaves. African descents seem to be the territory of the slave-owners and the white man no matter what or who had something to say in my opinion. Since African descents were not American they had no right to sue the courts. 

The overarching question behind the Dred Scott decision was the fact that if you were to take a slave into a free state, would that slave become free? The Supreme Court ruled that slavery could not be prohibited and should be nationalized, arguing that they can’t take property away from people, as they had a Constitutional right to their property. At this time, the Republican movement continued to grow larger and larger. Deep Southerners were afraid that Republicans would destroy slavery, at least in Alabama. They started to question if the South should succeed from the Union if a Republican were to be elected. Harper’s Ferry also contributed to the fear. John Brown led an assault on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, hoping to distribute weapons to slaves and start a slave rebellion. As fear heightens, the South forms militias to defend against a possible rebellion. By the end of 1859, some southerners began to demand a federal slave code, which had been proposed earlier in the Alabama platform by Willian Lowndes Yancey. Yancey, along with other southern radicals, began to demand that the Democratic party adopt a commitment for federal legislation to protect slavery in the territories. Many southerners, however, were critical of this additional slave code and saw it as unnecessary. They knew free state Democrats could not support such a law and hoped to win in the free states where the anti-slavery sentiment was high. This causes a split in the Southern Democrats over how to best defeat a Republican nominee in the election of 1860.

Dred Scot vs. Stan Ford, was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and, therefore, had no standing to sue in Federal Court, and that the Federal Government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott's request. The decision was only the second time in history that the Supreme Court ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional, in other words SCOTUS bowed to the societal and cultural norms prevalent at the time.

Essentially, the judiciary does not live in a vacuum and necessarily impressed by the prevalent socio-politico conditions of the time. The is a focuse upon the question that whenever, the legislature and executive are reluctant/hesitant to form unpopular policy decisions lest the voter support may turn hostile, it is but judiciary which comes to rescue.