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Question
#15439. Blaine
asks:
What famous Supreme Court decision was handed down on March 6, 1857?
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Tabby Tom
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The judgement in the case of Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford.
The essence of the decision (details of which are on various websites) was that Black mena nd women were not citizens of the United States.
'In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. The odds were in their favor. They had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of Wisconsin. The Scotts' freedom could be established on the grounds that they were held in bondage for extended periods in a free territory and were then returned to a slave state. Courts had ruled this way in the past. However, what appeared to be a straightforward lawsuit between two private parties became an 11-year legal struggle that culminated in one of the most notorious decisions ever issued by the United States Supreme Court.
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated that black people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the {courts;} the opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory.'
Dec 29 01, 9:09 PM
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