Posted on 11/17/2021 4:14:11 AM PST by marktwain
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The Dred Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court, delivered an opinion, written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, in 1857, that rocked the nation.
Many claim the decision precipitated the secession of the southern states and the War Between the States, or the Civil War, as many prefer.
One of the most famous passages in the decision is where Chief Justice Taney is explaining why black people cannot be allowed to be citizens:
It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
Historian David Hardy has done fascinating original research on the Dred Scott case. The case is one of the most studied in American history. There are several mysteries involved. Hardy explores them and is able to uncover what Chief Justice Taney and others on the Court expected to accomplish with the case.
The book is only 84 pages long. It is crammed with excellent scholarly work and references. This is a very well-done example of historical detective work.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Dave Hardy is a very good researcher.
I will be reading this book with interest.
Frankly, my belief is that the power-leaders of the South, were ‘enabled’ by a series of weak / compliant Presidents and strong positions in Congress & Senate for near 2 decades leading to Lincoln. With this Dred Scott decision & the odious Fugitive Slave law(s), the blowback became obvious that it spit the Jacksonian Democrat Party and the South was the loser for it.
Thus, and again this is my opinion, the leaders of the Southern States had painted themselves into an untenable political corner with Succession the only option. My great criticism is that this was a deadly blow to true Federalism and Republican Governance. There is a feeling of inevitability from here to the 17th Amendment and the Regulatory State as started by Wilson and the Roosevelts.
You will like the book.
Such a claim is wrong.
The Dred Scott decision was a false win for the South, delayed secession by four years, and ensured eventual northern victory.
The South was destined to secede because the South was a separate culture and had a different understanding of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights - all written by southerners.
If the Dred Scott decision had gone the other way, the South would have seceded immediately in 1857. And no one would have lifted a finger to stop them - certainly not U.S. President James Buchanan.
Even if Lincoln had been elected in 1861, the CSA by then would have been a fait accompli living and trading peacefully with the USA.
It would have been much more difficult for a President Lincoln to have stirred up the war lust. Even a Gulf of Tonkin incident by Lincoln might not have worked.
Eugenics and forced sterilization is another. Oliver Wendell Holmes Buck v. Bell opinion where he stated three generations of imbeciles was enough preceded the National Socialist by a decade.
Suspect covid mandates will be a 3rd.
“Wow, a Lost Causer admitting the Southern secession WAS all about slavery. I’m gonna have to write this date down.”
My post 5 does not mention slavery.
Read it again; for the first time.
If the abolitionists who pursued the case had cared about Dred and his wife as individuals, they could have purchased their freedom years earlier (it took a long time for the case to make its way through the courts).
Super book. I emailed David and told him how much I appreciated it, which is more informative than the larger book by noted historian Don Fehrenbacher.
Hardy packs ALL the historical issues, twists, and turns into just about 80 pages.
Re: purchasing Dred Scott’s freedom. I’m working from memory here so feel free to correct the details. But if memory serves, the wife of the army surgeon, Dred Scott’s former master, had remarried. Her new husband was from Massachusetts, a newly minted Republican, and an abolitionist. Her sons helped finance Dred Scott’s lawsuit and/or eventual purchase and emancipation. I’ve always wondered whether his lawsuit wasn’t a carefully selected put-up case. Running to court to force an issue is not a new tactic.
Many of the landmark civil rights cases have this character. Homer Plessy and Rosa Parks, for example, had volunteered to provoke a test case. Dred Scott seems to have been on good terms with the army doctor and his family. He made no attempt to gain his freedom while living in free states and territories. I don’t know where he was physically while his case wound its way through the courts or whether he was living de facto as a free man, but his case looks to have been carefully staged. He didn’t get the hoped for result, and neither did Homer Plessy, but he had organized support.
Like Roe v Wade and the pervert marriage case.
Really bad things happen when governments pretend things to be true that aren't true.
I have also read that Taney was hoping to damp down the slavery controversy which was tearing the country apart by having the Supreme Court weigh in. Of course that backfired.
Your post says that had the Dred Scott decision gone in Scott's favor then you believe the South would have seceded at once. As it is they waited until the first Republican president was elected. Dred Scott was about slavery. Hard not to make the connection between the two.
The decision could have gone several ways. It wasn’t an all or nothing thing (except maybe for Dred himself and his family). So there was no threat of immediate secession. What happened was Taney’s ruling went much further than it had to. It was unlikely that a majority of the court would go as far as Taney did and force his views on the country, but Taney’s provocation, and Buchanan’s approval, were a red flag to many Northerners.
You are chomping at the bit to wrong-foot me. I suppose that is to be expected.
But it wouldn't do you any harm to actually read what I posted: The South was destined to secede because the South was a separate culture and had a different understanding of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights - all written by southerners.
Did the South have slaves? Of course. But so did some of the Union states.
In fact, the original slave states were: New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
North and South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia were also slave states.
Ask yourself this question: If the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
Vermont could claim to be the first state which never had slavery. Of course some of the Northern colonies had had only small numbers of slaves. Martin van Buren was a New Yorker—his father had been a slaveowner. Ironically, Georgia was originally intended as a slave-free colony, but by 1787 it was one of two states which insisted on continuing the slave trade (which is why the Constitution did not allow it to be banned before 1808).
It has been a while since I have given that case much study.
It is my understanding that the Mississippi (?) Supreme Court had gone in favor of freedom for Scott, based on common law going back to English courts. If SCOTUS had not taken the case, or followed the state SC, there would not have been much impact beyond striking down the Fugitive Slave laws. One can speculate how the South would have taken that, but what the Court did in fact, destroyed and tried to refashion previous compromises, particularly those regarding the western territories. THAT made the decision particularly odious to many on both sides.
It would have been the Missouri Supreme Court.
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