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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 6 page research paper that examines the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in 1857 concerning the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The writer argues that this deeply affected tensions between the North and South and hastened the start of the Civil War. This examination of primary sources from the antebellum period demonstrates the tension and the division in the country concerning slavery that would soon drive the nation to war. Bibliography lists 7 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khdreds.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
the start of the Civil War. Scott and his wife and daughters had lived as slaves their entire lives. However, under various masters, they had lived a total of nine
years in free territories when Scott filed suit for his freedom on April 6, 1846, asserting that his residence in territories where slavery was illegal meant that his condition was
also illegal and that he was actually free under law. An examination of primary sources from the antebellum period demonstrates the tension and the division in the country
concerning slavery that would soon drive the nation to war. Missouri courts, in the past, had supported the doctrine of "once free, always free" (Moore). Therefore, under Missouri law,
there was a chance that Scott could prove his case and obtain his freedom. Historian Bob Moore notes that the key issue, in the view of the courts at
this time, was not Scotts freedom, but rather considerations of property rights. Since slaves were considered to be "property" under the law, the question before the court was if an
owner took his property to a state where having such property was illegal, was the state justified in taking this property away from its owner (Moore). Samuel Foot
in his 1859 examination of the case points out that the US Supreme Court in hearing this case was also concerned with issues of constitutionality. Scott claimed to be a
"citizen of the State of Missouri," but it was argued that Scott could not be a citizen of Missouri because he was "a negro of African descent" with a pure
African ancestry, having been brought into this country as slaves (Foot 2). Countering the assertion that the Scott family were slaves belonging to Sandford, they stipulated that they had once
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