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Dred Scott V. Sandford Case Summary

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Dred Scott V. Sandford Case Summary
Lana Phan
Case: Dred Scott v. Sandford

Facts: This lawsuit involves Dred Scott, an African American slave and his owner due to the passing of his previous owner Dr. Emerson, John F. A. Sanford. John F.A Sanford is the brother to the wife of Dr. Emerson. Dred Scott sued for his freedom in the Missouri Circuit Court for the City of St. Louis on April 6, 1846 . Dred Scott’s legal suit is for assault and false imprisonment: “A slave could be punished and kept as property, but a free person could not.”

From 1833 to 1843, he lived in the free state of in Illinois and in a part of the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was prohibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Missouri compromise controlled slavery in the western territories by prohibiting slavery in the former Louisiana Territory which was north of the parallel 36°30′ north, except in the borders of the Missouri territory which was a proposed state. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed a law suit for his freedom, arguing that because of his residence in a free territory, he was considered a free man . Scott then escalated the suit to
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Some consider Dred Scott not a citizen. The question has also been raised about the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise and whether it not infringes on an individual’s right to protect property which is written in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. What is considered a man or “men” in the Declaration of Independence is questioned and some justices ask if African Americans or those with slave roots are in the category of this people and if the equality guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the Natural and Common Laws granted by the Constitution is applicable to African American men . The consistent racist rulings by the states courts and eventually the federal court have led to the escalation of the Dred Scott case to the Supreme

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