by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Editor-in-Chief
On March 6, 1857, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney oversaw a 7-2 vote against enslaved spouses Dred Scott and Harriet Scott, who had bravely and rightfully petitioned the Court for their freedom.
As agreed to in the Missouri Compromise, if enslaved people worked and lived in free states with or for their owners, this gave the enslaved persons the right to be free.
However, in the majority opinion, Chief Justice Taney stated all people of African descent, free or enslaved, weren’t U.S. citizens and therefore did not have the right to sue in federal court, on top of having the gall to argue that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, as well as the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
This U.S. Supreme Court decision outraged Northern politicians and abolitionists while bolstering Southern politicians and pro-slavery adherents. The debate raged so deeply that it stoked both sides to believe that only war or succession would “solve” the nation’s slavery dilemma.
Though they didn’t obtain their freedom through the justice system, the Scotts were purchased by people who freed them in May of 1857. Dred found work as a porter in a St. Louis hotel until he contracted tuberculosis and died in September 1858.
Harriet continued living in St. Louis, working as a washerwoman to support herself and her daughters. She lived through the Civil War, witnessing the final abolition of slavery, and passed away on June 20, 1876.
In 1997, Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott were posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
On March 6, 2017, 160 years to the day after that horrible Supreme Court decision, Charlie Taney, the great great grand nephew of Justice Taney, apologized on behalf of his family to Lynne M. Jackson, the great great granddaughter of the Scotts, outside the Maryland State House in front of Roger Taney’s statue.
In August 2017, that same statue of Taney was removed from the entrance of Maryland’s State House. In 2023, a new, nine-foot-tall granite memorial monument for Dred Scott was dedicated at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, MO.
To learn more about Dred Scott, Harriet Robinson Scott and the Dred Scott Decision, check out the PBS video What Was the Dred Scott Decision?, the 2019 book Dred Scott: The Inside Story by David Hardy, 2008’s Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil by Mark A. Graber, and the 2009 book on Harriet Scott called Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier by Lea Vandervelde.
Sources:
- https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-what-was-dred-scott-decision/
- https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/dred-scott-v-sandford
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/from-a-descendant-of-roger-taney-to-a-descendant-of-dred-scott-im-sorry/2017/03/06/d2871308-0286-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html
- https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-09-22/thursday-the-effort-to-make-dred-scotts-grave-a-place-worthy-of-pilgrimage
- https://www.nps.gov/people/harriet-robinson-scott.htm?utm_source=person&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=experience_more&utm_content=large
- https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/michaelcoard/coard-15-things-you-didnt-know-about-dred-scott-case/article_74fb153f-8bd6-5f38-b9a9-19dbe2adb394.htmlhttps://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case
- https://wams.nyhistory.org/a-nation-divided/antebellum/harriet-robinson-scott/#:~:text=But%20Irene%20kept%20the%20money,support%20herself%20and%20her%20family.
