16. Dred Scott v. Sandford remains an indelible stain on the American nation
An enslaved African American, Dred Scott sought to sue for the freedom of himself, his wife, and their two daughters, arguing that because they had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years – where slavery was illegal – they should be emancipated. Ruling 7-2, the Supreme Court not only resolved that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, for it would “improperly deprive Scott’s owner of his legal property”, but also held any person of African ancestry to be ineligible to claim citizenship in the United States and that without citizenship Scott had no standing to even sue in a federal court.
Hoped by Chief Justice Roger Taney to settle the ongoing slavery question, his decision would trigger an earthquake in American politics. Prompting outrage across the United States, except among slaveholding states, the Supreme Court was vilified as never before. Serving as an indirect catalyst for the American Civil War, spurring abolitionists in the North to become noticeably more radical in their opposition to the institution of slavery whilst the South decried attacks on slavery as unlawful assaults on the stated law of the land, the ruling also aided in the Panic of 1857 as financial markets erupted into chaos. Today, the ruling is widely held as among the worst ever made by the Supreme Court.