Useful Links
Supreme Court Rules Black People Are Not Citizens https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/mar/6 Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America by Martha S. Jones https://bookshop.org/books/birthright-citizens-9781316604724/9781316604724 Dred (and Harriet) Scott decision https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/dred-harriet-scott-decision/ |
Primary sources
Dred Scott vs JOHN F. A. SANDFORD.-Ruling of the case
https://ushistoryscene.com/article/dred-scott-v-sanford-1857/
Chief Justice Taney's Majority Opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford
In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Supreme Court judges considered two key questions: did the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution apply to African-Americans, and could Congress prohibit slavery in new states? The first excerpt below addresses the citizenship question, and the second excerpt addresses the slavery question. The Supreme Court decided the case by a 7 to 2 decision.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/865.
The Boundaries of Law: Slaves and the Court in Antebellum America
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/070))
Frederick Douglass, “The Dred Scott Decision "Cannot Stand"
Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave and leader of the anti-slavery movement in the North. This excerpt is from an address he delivered to the Anniversary of the American Abolition Society held in New York, May 14, 1857.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1246.
Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury, “Slavery is Guaranteed by the Constitutional Compact,”
To counter abolitionist attacks in the antebellum era, Southern slaveowners and politicians found it necessary to justify the institution--both morally and politically. On the moral front they argued that enslaved African Americans were inferior to whites and that slavery exerted a civilizing force on heathenish Africans. Proslavery advocates found political justification by exploiting the Constitution's protections of private property against government incursion and arguing that federal government was overstepping its bounds by limiting slavery in western territories. The 1857 Dred Scott decision, to which this South Carolina editorial refers, bolstered the proslavery side.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/888
https://ushistoryscene.com/article/dred-scott-v-sanford-1857/
Chief Justice Taney's Majority Opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford
In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Supreme Court judges considered two key questions: did the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution apply to African-Americans, and could Congress prohibit slavery in new states? The first excerpt below addresses the citizenship question, and the second excerpt addresses the slavery question. The Supreme Court decided the case by a 7 to 2 decision.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/865.
The Boundaries of Law: Slaves and the Court in Antebellum America
- “The Dred Scott Case,” New-York Daily Tribune. (New York, New York), March 9, 1857.
- “The Decision of the Supreme Court,” Anti-Slavery Bugle. (New Lisbon, Ohio), March 21, 1857.
- “The Original Dred Scott a Resident of St. Louis–Sketch of His History,” Holmes County Republican. (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio), April 16, 1857.
- Click here to read the full text of the court testimony
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/070))
Frederick Douglass, “The Dred Scott Decision "Cannot Stand"
Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave and leader of the anti-slavery movement in the North. This excerpt is from an address he delivered to the Anniversary of the American Abolition Society held in New York, May 14, 1857.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1246.
Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury, “Slavery is Guaranteed by the Constitutional Compact,”
To counter abolitionist attacks in the antebellum era, Southern slaveowners and politicians found it necessary to justify the institution--both morally and politically. On the moral front they argued that enslaved African Americans were inferior to whites and that slavery exerted a civilizing force on heathenish Africans. Proslavery advocates found political justification by exploiting the Constitution's protections of private property against government incursion and arguing that federal government was overstepping its bounds by limiting slavery in western territories. The 1857 Dred Scott decision, to which this South Carolina editorial refers, bolstered the proslavery side.
https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/888