Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and thus they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The Supreme Court's decision has been widely denounced, both for its overt racism and for its crucial role in the start of the American Civil War four years later. Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said that it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions". Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound".
Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for freedom for themselves and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The case centered on Dred and Harriet Scott and their children, Eliza and Lizzie. The Scotts claimed that they should be granted their freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slaveholders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period.
The Northwest Ordinance, enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territory, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. Pennsylvania was the eastern boundary.
Henry Stanbery was an American lawyer from Ohio. He was most notable for his service as Ohio's first attorney general from 1846 to 1851 and the United States Attorney General from 1866 to 1868.
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, known as the Contract Clause, imposes certain prohibitions on the states. These prohibitions are meant to protect individuals from intrusion by state governments and to keep the states from intruding on the enumerated powers of the U.S. federal government.
The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of enslaved people who escaped from one state into another state or territory. The idea of the fugitive slave law was derived from the Fugitive Slave Clause which is in the United States Constitution. It was thought that forcing states to deliver fugitive slaves back to enslavement violated states' rights due to state sovereignty and was believed that seizing state property should not be left up to the states. The Fugitive Slave Clause states that fugitive slaves "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due", which abridged state rights because forcing people back into slavery was a form of retrieving private property. The Compromise of 1850 entailed a series of laws that allowed slavery in the new territories and forced officials in free states to give a hearing to slave-owners without a jury.
The Constitution of the State of Ohio is the basic governing document of the State of Ohio, which in 1803 became the 17th state to join the United States of America. Ohio has had three constitutions since statehood was granted.
Slavery in Indiana occurred between the time of French rule during the late seventeenth century and 1826, with a few traces of slavery afterward.
The Extradition Clause or Interstate Rendition Clause of the United States Constitution is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2, which provides for the extradition of an accused criminal back to the state where they allegedly committed a crime.
Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal laws which they deem unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution. There are similar theories that any officer, jury, or individual may do the same. The theory of state nullification has never been legally upheld by federal courts, although jury nullification has.
John McLean was an American jurist and politician who served in the United States Congress, as U.S. Postmaster General, and as a justice of the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Courts. He was often discussed for the Whig Party nominations for President, and is also one of the few people who served in all three branches of government.
Roger Brooke Taney was the fifth chief justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. Although an opponent of slavery, believing it to be an evil practice, Taney believed that it was not the place of the Court or the Federal Government to remedy the issue and that it was the Constitutional right of the states to deal with slavery individually and gradually. Taney infamously delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling that African Americans could not be considered U.S. citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the U.S. territories. Prior to joining the U.S. Supreme Court, Taney served as the U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under President Andrew Jackson. He was the first Catholic to serve on the Supreme Court.
Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a local city ordinance that made it a criminal offense for three or more persons to assemble on a sidewalk and “annoy” any passersby was unconstitutionally vague. Dennis Coates participated in a protest along with four other unnamed students, all of whom were convicted of violating the city ordinance. Coates appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction. However, this conviction was overturned in the divided United States Supreme Court decision. The Court found that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and violated the First Amendment freedom of assembly.
Handly's Lessee v. Anthony, 18 U.S. 374 (1820), is a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the proper boundary between the states of Indiana and Kentucky was the low-water mark on the western and northwestern bank of the Ohio River. Motion by the plaintiff, Handly's lessee, to eject inhabitants of a peninsula in the Ohio River was denied.
Admission to the Union is provided by the Admissions Clause of the United States Constitution in Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, which authorizes the United States Congress to admit new states into the Union beyond the thirteen states that already existed when the Constitution came into effect. The Constitution went into effect on June 21, 1788 in the nine states that had ratified it, and the U.S. federal government began operations under it on March 4, 1789, when it was in effect in 11 out of the 13 states. Since then, 37 states have been admitted into the Union. Each new state has been admitted on an equal footing with those already in existence.
The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).
Jones v. Van Zandt, 46 U.S. 215 (1847), was a landmark US Supreme Court decision involving the constitutionality of slavery that was a predecessor of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Supreme Court was then led by Chief Justice Roger Taney, who owned slaves and wrote the Dred Scott decision but not Jones. The Court unanimously reached the decision that the Fugitive Slave Act was constitutional and that the institution of slavery remained a matter for individual states to decide.
Winny v. Whitesides alias Prewitt was the first freedom suit heard by the Supreme Court of Missouri. The case established the state's judicial criteria for an enslaved person's right to freedom. The court determined that if a slave owner took a slave into free territory and established residence there, the slave would be free. The slave remained free even if returned to slave territory, engendering the phrase "once free, always free."
Polly Strong was an enslaved woman in the Northwest Territory, in present-day Indiana. She was born after the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. Slavery was prohibited by the Constitution of Indiana in 1816. Two years later, Strong's mother Jenny and attorney Moses Tabbs asked for a writ of habeas corpus for Polly and her brother James in 1818. Judge Thomas H. Blake produced indentures, Polly for 12 more years and James for four more years of servitude. The case was dismissed in 1819.
