Slave Who Sued His Owner for His Freedom - Essay Example

As a function of analyzing one of the most important Supreme Court cases of the first half of the 18th century, this brief analysis will analyze the case of Dred Scott; and its ruling, results, and implications for African-Americans as a whole.

Ultimately, the case of Dred Scott concerned a slave who sued his owner for his freedom. As a result of the fact that none of the previous reports were amenable to Dred Scott’s charge, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. However, the nuances of the case made it slightly more complex than merely representing the right of an individual to sue his/her master as a means of attaining a level of freedom. The case itself, from Dred Scott’s perspective, hinged upon the fact that two of the states in which he served and was held as a slave, specifically Illinois and Minnesota, had outlawed slavery. As a function of this flagrant disregard for the law, Scott’s case ultimately hinged upon what would be one of the causal factors for the Civil War; i.e. states rights.

The court ultimately ruled that African Americans, such as Dred Scott, had no claim to either freedom or citizenship; regardless of whether or not they were held as slaves in non-slaveholding states. Although this may seem in and of itself something of a shocking determination, even more, shocking was the fact that the Dred Scott case implicitly overruled the Missouri Compromise. As such, the Missouri Compromise was a piece of legislation that helps to divide the United States between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states based on geography. However, due to the fact, Supreme Court would not recognize Dred Scott’s claim to freedom, even though he was held as a sleeve against his will in a non-slaveholding state, the Missouri Compromise was additionally deemed unconstitutional. Further, it was ruled that the reason for this unconstitutionality was the fact that the federal government did not have the right to intervene in, nor make laws regarding the provision of slavery within the territories. More importantly, the Supreme Court’s ruling (by 7-1 no less) determined that Dred Scott was merely the property of his owners and as such was subject to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the taking of property from the owner without “due process under law”.  This only served to further weaken the understanding of the slave as a human being under the law.  Moreover, it legitimized the practice of slavery in the fact that it referenced the slave as a form of property that could not be re-allocated without due process under the law; in very much the same way the government might reallocate a piece of land or a given piece of agricultural equipment.  Such a level of dehumanization had far-reaching impacts.

This of course had far-reaching impacts as well as further differentiation and definition of how the African-American slave was used in society. Before delving into how this land work case affected the future of African-Americans within the United States, it is necessary to view the case within the constructs of how it defined the present time; i.e. the time in which the ruling was handed down. As a result of the Missouri Compromise, the slave was understood to represent only 3/5 of an individual. Moreover, as a result of Dred Scott’s case, the Supreme Court has now noted that the African-American slave was neither a citizen nor indeed free. Beyond merely inflaming tensions within both the North and the South, the Dred Scott case allowed for elements within the slaveholding South 2.2 legal precedents for the practice. This only served to embolden war hawks and set a fatal collision course within the country with regard to the issue of slavery.

Aregardult of the overturn of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott case led to an exponential increase in tensions between North and South; further encouraging the warmongers on both sides to the brink of conflict. However, Dred Scott had impacts far after the Civil War up to and including Brown V Board of Education and the existence of Affirmative Action. Due to the continued deprivation of rights, freedom, and citizenship of the African-Americans within society, both these 13th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution were necessitated. One can define the impacts of the case even further to understand that the 15th Amendment itself would not have been possible without understanding that citizenship was granted within the 14th Amendment.

Within the past 70 years, the Civil Rights movement has drawn inspiration from and parallels to the Dred Scott case. As a function of the fact that the United States had consecutively and it permanently deprived African-Americans of their civil rights, citizenship, voting privileges, and freedoms, the Civil Rights movement was able to underscore these flagrant abuses and seek to draw society’s notice of how inequitable treatment had been affected as something of a government policy over the past several centuries.