Constitutional Law Brief - Scott v. Sandford (1857)

This is the brief I put together for the infamous Dred Scott case about slavery. Note the two spellings of San(d)ford. This is not a mistake on my part, as Sanford's name is incorrectly spelled in the actual case. Once again, note that the formatting has been stripped from this brief. This was also one of my first briefs, so it probably isn't that good. Enjoy!

Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S.; 19 Howard 393; 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857)

FACTS: In 1834, Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon in the Army, took Dred Scott, his slave, from Missouri to Illinois, a state which did not allow slavery. In 1836 Emerson took Scott to present-day Minnesota, where slavery had been banned by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1838 Emerson returned to Missouri with Scott. After Emerson died, a suit was brought in Missouri against Emerson’s widow, claiming that Scott should be free because he resided in a free territory at one time. After Mrs. Emerson remarried an abolitionist, ownership of Scott was transferred to her brother, John Sanford of New York, to allow this case to continue without embarrassing Mrs. Emerson’s new family. Scott had won at the trial level, but had been defeated at the state supreme court level. On a writ of error from an adverse judgment, Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

ISSUE: Do slaves have the right or privilege of filing suit?

REASONING: Chief Justice Taney: The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution…

We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States…
Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.

DECISION: Dismissed.

RULE: One must be a citizen of the United States to have the rights and privileges which the Constitution provides. Among these privileges is access to the court system. Without such privilege, the court has no jurisdiction.

DISSENTING: Justice Curtis: At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens.
I feel obliged to say that, in my opinion, such an exertion of judicial power transcends the limits of the authority of the court, as described by its repeated decisions, and, as I understand, acknowledged in this opinion of the majority of the court.
Nor, in my judgment, will the position, that a prohibition to bring slaves into a Territory deprives any one of his property without due process of law, bear examination.

NOTES AND COMMENTS: This decision also determined that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which banned slavery north of the 36° 30’ line in the Louisiana territory, was void, because “an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.”