Ava's AP American: Lad #18

The Supreme Court, in 1857, debated the Dred Scott v Sanford Decision. At the beginning of the case,  the majority wanted to avoid the citizenship of the black people and whether the Missouri Compromise was constitutional or unconstitutional. First, Taney the judge addressed the citizenship of blacks. He asked whether it was possible for someone who had previously been thought of as property to become a citizen of the United States. He stated that because Dred Scott was not an American citizen therefore he did not have the right to sue under the Constitution. Therefore, the case was unconstitutional. In response to the issue of the Missouri Compromise, Taney declared that the federal government did not have the power to work in these territories and deny the American citizens their property rights. He established the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional and stated that citizens could not have their property taken away because of their location of settlement. The ruling was that a slave is free depending on their state and because Missouri was a slave state, Dred Scott was not free. Therefore, Taney supported Sanford's decision.





Roe v. Wade is the 20th Century equivalent of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The Roe abortion rule is like slavery in that it de-humanizes and mistreats a whole class of humanity. As Dred Scott held that Blacks not persons entitled to constitutional protection, so Roe holds that unborn humans are not entitled to basic constitutional protection for their lives.  As the Court in Dred Scott said that Black slaves are merely the property of their owners, so Roe said that an unborn human being is merely property belonging to her pregnant mother – which the woman has the decision.