Dred Scott decision
US Supreme Court decision of 1857 which denied ‘blacks’ (African Americans) US citizenship and made slavery legal in all US territories. The decision heightened regional tensions, and pushed the country further toward Civil War. Dred Scott (c. 1800-1858), a slave from Missouri, had sued for his freedom from his owner John Sanford (originally in the Missouri courts), arguing that he had lived with his owner in Illinois, a free state, and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery had been outlawed by the Missouri Compromise. The Supreme Court ruled that black people were not US citizens, and therefore were not entitled to the right to sue in federal courts; that those who had achieved their freedom could lose it by returning to a state that allowed slavery; and that the Missouri Compromise was illegal, as it interfered with the right to own slaves, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution.
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