| Assignment for October 1:
Class discussion will begin by returning to the Dred Scott case. Paul S. Boyer provides a convenient summary of the case in The Oxford Companion to American History, 2001, pp. 693, 694, where he points out that Scott was freed first by the lower court in Missouri on the grounds that he had become free by living in Illinois and in Wisconsin territory (now Minnesota). The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the lower court in 1854. Scott then took his case to the Federal District Court under the clause in Article 3, Section 2 of the U. S. Constitution that allows a citizen of one state to sue a citizen of another in federal court. The lower Federal Court ruled that on the merits of the case, Scott was still a slave. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court. Taney, writing for the majority denied citizenship to Scott on the grounds that he never was and never could be a citizen of any state because of his race, and that the Congress could not bestow citizenship on blacks as was done for certain areas under the Missouri Compromise.
Be prepared to summarize the arguments of each of the justices, placing them in the context of their careers and the newspaper reaction of the day.
The justices and their terms of service on the Taney Court at the time of Scott v. Sandford, are:
John McLean, 1830-61
James Moore Wayne, 1835-1867
R. B. Taney, 1836-1865. C.J.
John Catron, 1837-1865
Peter Vivian Daniel, 1842-1860
Samuel Nelson, 1845-1872
Robert C. Grier, 1846-1870
Benjamin Curtis, 1851-1857
John Campbell, 1853-1861
The full text of the opinions and short biographies of each justice can be found at the Cornell Law School web site.
Read the national accounts of the opinions, and determine how the accounts are the same or differ from what was reported in the Maryland newspapers.
Note that Taney's views on race are drawn directly from the Maryland experience. It could be argued that they are reflective of those who supported the Southern position and form the basis for understanding concepts of race and the law that were to be embedded in our current State Constitution by the Constitutional Convention of 1867.
In acknowledging the attitude of Taney towards blacks when he wrote that they were not included under the word "citizens" in the Constitution and were "so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect," it is also important to remember that he would confront a President who suspended habeus corpus, incarcerating citizens without benefit of the courts. Despite his erroneous perceptions of race, Taney would write persuasively on the legal rights of the private citizen in ex parte Merryman, an argument which survives his personal views on race and continues to have broad support in legal circles and the community at large.
Class will conclude with a discussion of the reading in
Bogen, pp. 103-119, with emphasis on how the law and attitudes towards race in Maryland pushed the state in the direction of segregation and wide ranging restrictive covenants, both written and unwritten.
Visit the Maryland State Archives document packet relating to the celebration of the ratification of the 15th amendment as the context for battles for equal rights and justice that loomed ahead. Pay particular attention to the reporting of the speech of Frederick Douglass at http://msa.maryland.gov/dtroy/project/index.html.
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