what was the famous supreme court case of 1857?

Answer 1

Dred Scott v. Sandford

The Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, holding that blacks could not be U.S. citizens, exacerbated sectional tensions between North and South and was a turning point in the road to civil war..

Answer 2

Go to the website http://www.oyez.org/ It is the web site for the Supreme Court. there you can look up any case that was before the court and it will give you all the information you need to know about it, as far as what the issue was and what the decision of the court was. It is a wonderful place to start when looking into Supreme Court issues. It has some really neat and good information there. Heck it Helped me get threw my semester of Constitutional History. It really is a cool site at least go and check it out if you have questions on cases that were before the court. =) The thing argued in Dread Scott was that he was a black slave and had gone along with his master to areas of the nation that were not slave states. His case was that since he had been in free (non-slave) States that he was in respect a free man and could not be considered a slave. The court found otherwise, and ruled that he was in fact a slave on the basic idea that if one takes like a horse or a wagon into another state, that does not relinquish the owners rights to that horse or wagon. Since slaves where seen as property and not as humans that meant that he could not bring a case in court against his owner. His owner had legal right to him. This was just one of the very, very many issues that helped lead the way for the civil war. The war was not fought about freeing blacks at first. It was fought because the north wanted to minimize the amount of slave holding states. Thus they (the south) would not control congress. If new states where admitted and were free states then the north would have control of congress. This along with John Brown, and Lincoln’s election added fuel to the fire in the south, that caused them to ultimately succeed from the Union. The idea that the American civil war was fought to free the slaves originally is wrong! Lincoln even once said that he would free none of the slaves or all if he thought it would have keep the United States together. It was not until after the war had started and been going on for some time that Lincoln freed the slaves, but only in the states that were in rebellion against the Union. If one of the states had stayed in the union then the slaves in that state would have remained slaves. So as you can see the civil war is not even nearly as clear cut as most all high school text books make it out to be. I hope this helped you some. =)

Answer 3

Dred Scott V. John F.A. Sandford

Answer 4

yep, Dred Scott

catalyst to the civil war