In memory of Dred Scott Circa 1799, Dred Scott was born into slavery in Southampton County, Virginia, as property to the Peter Blow family. In 1830 the Blow family sold him to John Emerson, a doctor serving in the United States Army who took him into free states, establishing the basis of his claim to free status. Dr. Emerson married Eliza Irene Sanford, and the Emersons and Scotts returned to Missouri in 1840. In 1842, Emerson left the Army. After he died in the Iowa Territory in 1843, his widow Eliza inherited his estate, including the Scotts. For three years after Emersons death, she continued to lease out the Scotts as hired slaves. In 1846, Scott attempted to purchase his and his familys freedom, but Eliza Irene Emerson refused, prompting Scott to resort to legal recourse. In 1850, a Missouri jury concluded that Scott and his wife should be granted freedom since they had been illegally held as slaves during their extended residence in the free jurisdictions of Illinois and Wisconsin. Irene Emerson appealed. In 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down the lower court ruling, saying, Times now are not as they were when the previous decisions on this subject were made. They ruled that the precedent of once free always free was no longer the case, overturning 28 years of legal precedent. After losing again in federal district court, they appealed to the United States Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled against him on March 6, 1857 The Supreme Court of US reached its lowest point before the Citizens United decision, when it ruled that, under the Constitution blacks had no rights a white man is required to respect, nor, in implication, could such rights be given to them by the states. Taney, the Chief Justice who wrote the words above, went on to swear in Lincoln, whose minions passed the 14th Amendment, with the stated intention, in the words of its author, Roscoe Conkling, of giving corporations human rights. Citizens United, which fulfills Conklings intentions, transcends Dred Scott in its humanity, for in implication, it means a human has no rights a corporation is bound to respect! Meanwhile, in 1850, Irene Sanford Emerson had remarried. Her new husband, Calvin C. Chaffee, was an abolitionist, who shortly after their marriage was elected to the U.S. Congress. Chaffee was apparently unaware that his wife owned the most prominent slave in the United States until one month before the Supreme Court decision. By then it was too late for him to intervene. Chaffee was harshly criticized for having been married to a slaveholder. Unable to persuade his wife to manumit the slaves, he did persuade her to return Scott to the Blow family, his original owners. By this time, the Blow family had relocated to Missouri and become opponents of slavery. Henry Taylor Blow manumitted the four Scotts on May 26, 1857, less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling. Scott enjoyed a year and a half and undisputed freedom before dying of consumption. https://youtube/watch?v=i5pErRyPKBc
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 20:01:38 +0000
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