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Dred Scott: The Inside Story
Imagine a reality in which people can own other people (buying them with or without a warranty), or a person can buy himself, and become free. A reality in which slaves can sue their masters, and have a jury decide whether they are really free. Into this not-alternate reality came a remarkable cast of Americans:Dred and Harriet Scott - the slaves whose suit for freedom sparked a battle in the Supreme Court and in the White House.John F. A. Sanford - the mountain man turned New York millionaire, who agreed to pose as the Scott's owner so the suit could be filed.Rep. Calvin Chaffee - the prominent Massachusetts abolitionist, who was shocked to discover that he and his wife owned slaves, indeed the most famous slaves in the United States.Roger Taney - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who tried to preserve the Union by protecting slavery, and instead brought on the Civil War and slavery's abolition.James Buchanan - the President-elect who secretly connived with the Court's pro-slavery Justices, seeking a ruling that would let slavery spread throughout the territories.Abraham Lincoln - the failed frontier politician who awoke one morning to realize that Taney and Buchanan had given him the roadmap to the White House.David T. Hardy, attorney and N.Y. Times best-selling author, explores the side of Dred Scott not explored in the history books, a side that involved mistakes, trickery, and skulduggery at the highest levels. Dred Scott's attorneys sued a man who had no claim at all to being Scott's slaveowner, and he went along with it to hide the identity of the person whom they should have sued. Scott's attorneys were tricked into filing suit by a former Attorney General, who now represented the slavery cause. President Buchanan entered into secret correspondence with two pro-slavery Justices, who told him of the Court's deliberations and the vote count, and advised him on how to describe the case in his Inaugural Address. The President, in turn, lobbied one of them to change his opinion and rule that the Constitution forbade any restriction on slavery in the western territories. The Chief Justice then broke his own Court's rules so as to steal a march on the Justices who voted in favor of such restrictions, but his effort backfired and inflamed the reaction to his ruling.The Court and President Buchanan had hoped that the ruling would eliminate slavery as a political issue and heal a dividing nation. That effort, too, backfired. A rising leader named Abraham Lincoln seized upon the ruling as evidence that the President and the Court had colluded to make slavery universal. His opponent, Stephen Douglas, reacted by taking a position that fractured the Democratic Party, leading to a four-way presidential race. The resulting divided vote ensured that Lincoln won the White House and brought on the Civil War, three new constitutional amendments, the abolition of slavery in the United States, and the beginning of America's rise to superpower status.All in all, it was an impressive outcome for an elderly slave's quest for his freedom, represented by an attorney who couldn't count votes.
- GenresHistory
104 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 24, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 23, 2019
Having read about President Buchanan’s strange attempt to capitulate to the slave states in the period between Lincoln’s election and his taking office, in The Peace That Almost Was, and then the events leading up to the 1860 election in Lincoln’s words, in The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, one case seemed pivotal to the controversy of the times, whether slavery would expand or fade in the United States. The Missouri Compromise said it would fade; the Kansas-Nebraska act said people would vote on it. And then the Supreme Court negated each of those and ruled that slavery must be allowed in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
How this happened is an amazing story. Even in 1857 when the ruling came down, it was obvious that Chief Justice Taney’s arguments were anachronistic. Even Taney seemed to recognize that his arguments had serious problems: he delayed publishing the ruling for months while he rewrote them to answer the arguments made by the two dissenters.
Hardy collects quotes from original documents—personal letters and court documents—to show that this was a case meant from the start to change the law on slavery far more drastically than just freeing one family from slavery. Even the fact of who held the Scotts in slavery was manipulated to ensure that the case remained alive until it reached the Supreme Court.
Once in the Supreme Court, pro-slavery forces, including President Buchanan, colluded to ensure a wide ruling applying to slavery in the territories. This was apparently meant to settle the slavery question in America in favor of more slavery; what it actually did, Hardy argues, was unsettle the question so much that a bombastic midwestern bumpkin could overcome career politicians and, to the horror of an Eastern elite happy to compromise with the slave South, be elected President.
This is short, fascinating, and well worth reading.
How this happened is an amazing story. Even in 1857 when the ruling came down, it was obvious that Chief Justice Taney’s arguments were anachronistic. Even Taney seemed to recognize that his arguments had serious problems: he delayed publishing the ruling for months while he rewrote them to answer the arguments made by the two dissenters.
Hardy collects quotes from original documents—personal letters and court documents—to show that this was a case meant from the start to change the law on slavery far more drastically than just freeing one family from slavery. Even the fact of who held the Scotts in slavery was manipulated to ensure that the case remained alive until it reached the Supreme Court.
Once in the Supreme Court, pro-slavery forces, including President Buchanan, colluded to ensure a wide ruling applying to slavery in the territories. This was apparently meant to settle the slavery question in America in favor of more slavery; what it actually did, Hardy argues, was unsettle the question so much that a bombastic midwestern bumpkin could overcome career politicians and, to the horror of an Eastern elite happy to compromise with the slave South, be elected President.
This is short, fascinating, and well worth reading.
June 23, 2019
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This is a captivating, well-written, focused examination of the Dred Scott case. Author David Hardy introduces and humanizes the people involved in the case, explains the social and legal context of the case, traces the procedural history of the case and provides a succinct statement of the United States Supreme Court ruling in Scott v. Sanford. The text is a short and easy read.
I'm a trial attorney and as I read this book I got the feeling from the organization and writing that I was reading a legal brief - which I mean in a good way since briefs really do have to have a focus on the main issues. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see my suspicion confirmed that Hardy is an attorney.
I was also surprised by how much I didn't know about the case. I had learned that the case denied Scott's claims on the grounds that as a Negro he could not be a citizen. However, the Dred Scott decision went beyond that and held that neither Congress nor the territories could deny slave-owners their right to property in their slaves. In short, the Supreme Court ended the political process that was breaking down but also working out compromises by giving a clear win to the South and slavery in a manner that we've seen the modern Supreme Court do on various social questions.
As Hardy points out, these latter decisions were the political dynamite that destroyed Senator Douglas' compromise of "popular sovereignty" position. Douglas went from a figure that Southerners could vote for as giving them at least a chance at expanding slavery and Northerners could vote for as putting the issue of slavery into someone else's hands. Since the Southerners had been handed victory by the Supreme Court, they didn't need a compromise. On the other hand, Northerners were well-aware that they had been placed into a position where their way of life had been held by the Supreme Court to be outside the "Overton Window" of the mid-19th century.
I don't think I appreciated that angle on the Dred Scott decision and how it made war almost inevitable.
This is a very good book that makes for a quick read on the subject.
This is a captivating, well-written, focused examination of the Dred Scott case. Author David Hardy introduces and humanizes the people involved in the case, explains the social and legal context of the case, traces the procedural history of the case and provides a succinct statement of the United States Supreme Court ruling in Scott v. Sanford. The text is a short and easy read.
I'm a trial attorney and as I read this book I got the feeling from the organization and writing that I was reading a legal brief - which I mean in a good way since briefs really do have to have a focus on the main issues. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see my suspicion confirmed that Hardy is an attorney.
I was also surprised by how much I didn't know about the case. I had learned that the case denied Scott's claims on the grounds that as a Negro he could not be a citizen. However, the Dred Scott decision went beyond that and held that neither Congress nor the territories could deny slave-owners their right to property in their slaves. In short, the Supreme Court ended the political process that was breaking down but also working out compromises by giving a clear win to the South and slavery in a manner that we've seen the modern Supreme Court do on various social questions.
As Hardy points out, these latter decisions were the political dynamite that destroyed Senator Douglas' compromise of "popular sovereignty" position. Douglas went from a figure that Southerners could vote for as giving them at least a chance at expanding slavery and Northerners could vote for as putting the issue of slavery into someone else's hands. Since the Southerners had been handed victory by the Supreme Court, they didn't need a compromise. On the other hand, Northerners were well-aware that they had been placed into a position where their way of life had been held by the Supreme Court to be outside the "Overton Window" of the mid-19th century.
I don't think I appreciated that angle on the Dred Scott decision and how it made war almost inevitable.
This is a very good book that makes for a quick read on the subject.
March 16, 2019
As described in this book, the Dredd Scott case had more twists and turns than forty miles of bad road and put on display the complexity of human nature. As far as I can gather from the book, the key points of this case are:
• Dredd Scott was the property of Dr. John Emerson, an Army doctor, whose duties took him out of Missouri, a slave state, into Illinois and the Wisconsin territory. It was at Fort Snelling that Dredd married Harriet Robinson, a servant of Major Taliaferro, the commander of the fort and the person who officiated the wedding. Later, the Scotts returned to Missouri with Dr. Emerson.
• After Dr. Emerson died, his widow Irene apparently planned to sell the Scotts, prompting Dredd Scott to file a freedom lawsuit. Under Missouri law, a slave taken from Missouri into a free state or territory was considered to be free, and lawsuits were not infrequently filed by slaves to obtain their freedom. This lawsuit was fought all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court, which, in ruling against Dredd Scott, overruled all prior precedents regarding freedom lawsuits.
• While the freedom lawsuit was ongoing, Irene Emerson remarried, and her new husband was Dr. Calvin Chaffee, an abolitionist Congressman from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether he was aware of her ownership of slaves or Dredd Scott’s freedom lawsuit in the Missouri court system.
• After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against him, Dredd Scott filed a lawsuit in federal court. One oddity of this case is that it was filed against John Sanford (listed as Sandford in the court case), Irene Emerson Chaffee’s brother, who is listed as the owner in this case. The author of the book argues that this was done to give cover for the Chaffees.
• Once the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sanford’s attorneys expanded the scope of their arguments to challenge the constitutionality of any federal oversight of slavery, such as the Missouri Compromise. So, the ruling in Dredd Scott v. Sandford didn’t just decide that, being a slave and having African descent, Dredd Scott did not have citizenship and, therefore, did not have standing in federal court. It also ruled that Congress did not have authority over slavery in the territories and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Furthermore, it held that territorial governments could not restrict slavery even if their voters wanted to do so. In other words, under this decision, slavery could not be restricted in the territories under any circumstances. This probably meant that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was also unconstitutional.
• There were two dissents in the Dredd Scott v. Sandford ruling. One of them was so powerful that Chief Justice Taney, who wanted to end once and for all with his ruling the slavery question that was convulsing the nation, chose to violate court rules to incorporate a response to it after the fact. Once the opinion and dissents were read, they were to be turned over to the clerk for printing. The dissenting opinions were turned over, but Chief Justice Taney withheld the opinion for two months while he edited it. After the dissenting opinions had been in the newspapers for those two months, the official opinion was finally published, producing a national firestorm. Chief Justice Taney’s overly prideful goal of personally resolving the slavery question with one sweep of his high and mighty pen had failed.
• The Chaffees had about one week of peace before a local newspaper revealed that they were the true owners of Dredd and Harriet Scott. Under pressure from all sides, they started the process to free them. Because Missouri law required slave owners to be present in the courtroom when freeing a slave, they transferred ownership to Taylor Blow, a supporter of Scott’s bid for freedom and a member of the family that had originally owned Dredd Scott. He completed the process of freeing Dredd and Harriet Scott.
So, the wife of an abolitionist Congressman fought Dredd Scott’s bid for freedom, and a member of a slave-holding family supported it. A chief justice violated his own court’s rules in an effort to take the slavery issue out of the hands of Congress and voters. What a country!
Apparently there has been a long-standing scholarly debate regarding Irene Emerson Chaffee’s motive for fighting Dredd Scott’s bid for freedom. The author argues that the Chouteau family, into which John Sanford had married, both pushed and bankrolled the fight because they had a vested interest in ending the freedom lawsuits once and for all. I cannot say whether the author is correct here, but it makes for an intriguing possibility.
Regarding Chief Justice Taney’s bid to resolve the slavery issue once and for all by judicial fiat, I think he was an arrogant fool. The Dredd Scott ruling didn’t resolve the issue; rather, it only added fuel to the fire. Seeing it as a victory for their side, the slave states no longer saw a need to compromise on the issue. The anti-slavery northern states even questioned whether this ruling rendered their own anti-slavery laws unconstitutional. Not even knowing this, I have long wondered if the Dredd Scott ruling rendered such laws one court decision away from being turned into dead letters. In such a case would the North have seceded from the Union, and would a war have been fought over possession of the western territories. I guess we will never know.
Reading this book has piqued my interest in this case, and I foresee reading more on the topic in the future.
• Dredd Scott was the property of Dr. John Emerson, an Army doctor, whose duties took him out of Missouri, a slave state, into Illinois and the Wisconsin territory. It was at Fort Snelling that Dredd married Harriet Robinson, a servant of Major Taliaferro, the commander of the fort and the person who officiated the wedding. Later, the Scotts returned to Missouri with Dr. Emerson.
• After Dr. Emerson died, his widow Irene apparently planned to sell the Scotts, prompting Dredd Scott to file a freedom lawsuit. Under Missouri law, a slave taken from Missouri into a free state or territory was considered to be free, and lawsuits were not infrequently filed by slaves to obtain their freedom. This lawsuit was fought all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court, which, in ruling against Dredd Scott, overruled all prior precedents regarding freedom lawsuits.
• While the freedom lawsuit was ongoing, Irene Emerson remarried, and her new husband was Dr. Calvin Chaffee, an abolitionist Congressman from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether he was aware of her ownership of slaves or Dredd Scott’s freedom lawsuit in the Missouri court system.
• After the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against him, Dredd Scott filed a lawsuit in federal court. One oddity of this case is that it was filed against John Sanford (listed as Sandford in the court case), Irene Emerson Chaffee’s brother, who is listed as the owner in this case. The author of the book argues that this was done to give cover for the Chaffees.
• Once the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sanford’s attorneys expanded the scope of their arguments to challenge the constitutionality of any federal oversight of slavery, such as the Missouri Compromise. So, the ruling in Dredd Scott v. Sandford didn’t just decide that, being a slave and having African descent, Dredd Scott did not have citizenship and, therefore, did not have standing in federal court. It also ruled that Congress did not have authority over slavery in the territories and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Furthermore, it held that territorial governments could not restrict slavery even if their voters wanted to do so. In other words, under this decision, slavery could not be restricted in the territories under any circumstances. This probably meant that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was also unconstitutional.
• There were two dissents in the Dredd Scott v. Sandford ruling. One of them was so powerful that Chief Justice Taney, who wanted to end once and for all with his ruling the slavery question that was convulsing the nation, chose to violate court rules to incorporate a response to it after the fact. Once the opinion and dissents were read, they were to be turned over to the clerk for printing. The dissenting opinions were turned over, but Chief Justice Taney withheld the opinion for two months while he edited it. After the dissenting opinions had been in the newspapers for those two months, the official opinion was finally published, producing a national firestorm. Chief Justice Taney’s overly prideful goal of personally resolving the slavery question with one sweep of his high and mighty pen had failed.
• The Chaffees had about one week of peace before a local newspaper revealed that they were the true owners of Dredd and Harriet Scott. Under pressure from all sides, they started the process to free them. Because Missouri law required slave owners to be present in the courtroom when freeing a slave, they transferred ownership to Taylor Blow, a supporter of Scott’s bid for freedom and a member of the family that had originally owned Dredd Scott. He completed the process of freeing Dredd and Harriet Scott.
So, the wife of an abolitionist Congressman fought Dredd Scott’s bid for freedom, and a member of a slave-holding family supported it. A chief justice violated his own court’s rules in an effort to take the slavery issue out of the hands of Congress and voters. What a country!
Apparently there has been a long-standing scholarly debate regarding Irene Emerson Chaffee’s motive for fighting Dredd Scott’s bid for freedom. The author argues that the Chouteau family, into which John Sanford had married, both pushed and bankrolled the fight because they had a vested interest in ending the freedom lawsuits once and for all. I cannot say whether the author is correct here, but it makes for an intriguing possibility.
Regarding Chief Justice Taney’s bid to resolve the slavery issue once and for all by judicial fiat, I think he was an arrogant fool. The Dredd Scott ruling didn’t resolve the issue; rather, it only added fuel to the fire. Seeing it as a victory for their side, the slave states no longer saw a need to compromise on the issue. The anti-slavery northern states even questioned whether this ruling rendered their own anti-slavery laws unconstitutional. Not even knowing this, I have long wondered if the Dredd Scott ruling rendered such laws one court decision away from being turned into dead letters. In such a case would the North have seceded from the Union, and would a war have been fought over possession of the western territories. I guess we will never know.
Reading this book has piqued my interest in this case, and I foresee reading more on the topic in the future.
January 13, 2020
Short but informative monograph. Quite readable, with what appears to be original research into the vexing question of just who was the real party in interest in what is widely thought the most notorious case in American jurisprudence. Nice job of putting complex legal doctrine and intricate political developments in comprehensible form. (Too many typos and, probably not unrelated, cheap production values, but these are quibbles.) For the more technically inclined, also read Don E. Fehrenbacher's "The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics" (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). David T. Hardy rightly terms the latter "indispensable," but it is more of a challenge.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews