2. Direction?
• In 1857, President James
Buchanan believed that the
slave issue was “approaching
its end” and hoped that the
Supreme Court would share his
view and resolve the slavery
issue once and for all.
3. Not a person
• Unfortunately for Buchanan,
and for slaves, the Supreme
Court went in exactly the
opposite direction in their
opinion in the case of Dred
Scott v. Sanford.
4. In 1834, Scott was
sold to an Army
doctor who brought
him to Illinois
In 1836, the doctormoved Scott was born
brought
In 1830, Scott was moved back
Dred
In 1838, the doctor
ScottAlabama to Missouri
to the Wisconsin a slave in Virginia
from
to Missouri, where he died in 1843
Territory,
and left his possessionsaroundwife.
Sometime his 1799.
to before 1830
where Scott married his wife.
She left the Scotts in the care ofmoved to
Dred Scott was her brother,
John Sanford. Alabama
5. Not a person
•Scott argued that
because he and his wife
lived in states where
slavery was outlawed,
they should be free.
6. Not a person
•The Supreme Court
disagreed and ruled that
slaves were not citizens
and could not sue in
court, so it did not matter
where Scott lived.
7. Not a person
• More importantly, the Court
ruled that slaves were the
property of their owners and
owners could not be deprived
of their property without the
due process of law provided
by the 5 th Amendment.
8. Not a person
• This decision enraged
northern abolitionists
because they now
understood that Congress
had no right to ban
slavery anywhere.
9. Not a person
• The issue got worse when a
small group of pro-slavery
forces met at Lecompton,
Kansas and wrote the
proposed state constitution
necessary for statehood, and
it supported slavery.
10. Not a person
• The majority of Kansans were
anti-slavery and would not
vote on the constitution, yet
President Buchanan supported
the pro-slavery Lecompton
Constitution, hoping that it
would end the slave issue in
that state.
11. Not a person
• Democrats in Congress,
especially Stephen Douglas,
were so angry that Buchanan
had so obviously ignored the
idea of “popular sovereignty”
that they sent it back to
Kansas for them to try again.
12. Not a person
• The population of the state
rejected the constitution, and
so Kansas remained a territory
where the majority of people
were opposed to slavery, but
where slavery was legal because
of the Dred Scott decision.
