[mkim123]

How did the Dred Scott Case hurt the South more than the North?

[fbertos]

Tensions between the Northern and Southern states grew even worse on March 6, 1857, when the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger Taney, ruled that Congress did not have the right to prohibit slavery in the western territories. Taney, a slave owner from the slave-holding state of Maryland, ruled that a slave named Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court. Scott had attempted to sue for his freedom based on the claim that he had lived on free soil in Illinois and Wisconsin before moving back to Missouri. However, Scott was denied his freedom because, according to Taney, "blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it." [See Dred Scott Decision]

The Dred Scott decision meant that the Republican Party's goal of stopping slavery from spreading to the western territories was unconstitutional. And it also meant that the doctrine of "popular sovereignty"—which stated that territorial governments had the power to prohibit slavery if they so wished—was also unconstitutional.

Many Northern abolitionists were outraged at that decision, and saw it as a major step backward in their efforts to rid the nation of slavery. Some even believed that Southern Democrats were engaged in a conspiracy to make slavery legal throughout the country. However, Frederick Douglass, a rising black political leader and abolitionist, stated that "my hopes were never brighter than now." To Douglass, the Dred Scott decision and its implications were so immoral that he felt it would bring slavery to the forefront of the nation's consciousness. Douglass believed this would lead to the ultimate obliteration of the practice. His words would soon prove prophetic.

A vivid example of how rancorous the relations between North and South had gotten is provided by an attack on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks (D). Sumner had given a speech on the Senate floor in May of 1856 in which he argued that the "Crime against Kansas" was simply the latest attempt by Southern political leaders to expand slavery to the west and hence gain power in Congress. Two days later, Brooks walked up to Sumner at his desk in the Senate chamber and pummeled him viciously with a cane until Sumner lost consciousness.