what laws did the Supreme Court apply in the Dred Scott decision?

Question

would these be the constitution and the dec or independence? would it also include individual state laws mentioned?

many thanks to everyone who answers

Answer 1

Here is an overview of what he uses, broken up according to the THREE "questions" he answers:

(1) 'Are blacks citizens of the United States, hence having the right to sue in federal court?' (In other words, does Scott even have the right to be appealing to us?)

Taney says NO.

He allows that currently states could pass laws to allow blacks the right to vote etc (which, he points out, they may also do for non-naturalized immigrants who are not, however, citizens), BUT this does NOT mean they are citizens of the NATION with all the Constitution's protections for the nation's citizens.

Argues that blacks were NOT regarded at citizens when the Constittution was adopted (and no state law thereafter can change that).

To demonstrate this he appeals to evidence, esp. from a sampling of colonial and state laws, limiting the rights of blacks (including FREE blacks). In a few places he makes a special point of citing laws from NORTHERN states, to demonstrate that the basic view and practice was the same even in the most non-slave states.

Also cited here - Art 1, sec, 8, which authorizes Congress "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization. . . " Since naturalization is concerned with who can BECOME a citizen of the NATION who is not already one, no state could, after the Constitution's adoption, decide for themselves to ADD some person or class of persons to the nation's citizenship.
(Quoting Taney - "every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; BUT NONE OTHER")

[Counter-argument of the Curtis dissent -- several Northern states HAD regarded freed blacks as citizens AT the time of the Constitution's adoption.]

___________________

(2) 'Does Congress have the power to prohibit slavery in the territories? In other words, was the Missouri Compromise constitutional?'

Taney answers "NO"

Of course, this section WILL include a citation of the Missouri Compromise bill(s), though not to support the decision, but to declare that legislation UN-constitutional.

The argument is based in part on his interepretation of Article IV, sec 3 par. 2 - Congress's powers over the territories
"The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States"

Taney argues that this power to legislate for the territories has specific Constitutional LIMITS

He uses the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th amendments to illustrate what Congress CANNOT legislate concerning the territories.

He esp appeals to the due process clause of the fifth amendment, that is, that "No person shall be. . . deprived of life, liberty, or PROPERTY, without due process of law". Argument: this means Congress CANNOT pass any law that deprives a person of their property and rights in the use of that property, such as freely taking it to other parts of the nation without thereby losing the right to it. (Quoting him --"An Act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States, and who had committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.")

He argues from OTHER parts of the Constitution that slave property must be INCLUDED in this reference to "property". Specifically,

Fugitive Slave provision - Art IV, sec 2
In Article 1, Section 9, Congress is limited, expressly, from prohibiting the "Importation" of slaves, before 1808. (This helps to show that, at the time of the Constitution's adoption, it was permissible to treat slaves as property -- buying and selling....)

_____________

(3) 'Was Missouri obligated to recognize Dred Scott's freedom based on his residence in either Illinois or the Wisconsin Territory?'

This part is brief and offers the fewest citations. It does, however, make a generral appeal to the laws of MISSOURI, and to their determining the status of Scott once he returned there.

Answer 2

The Declaration of Independence is not a law but it showed intent.

Definately the Constitution would be. The Supreme Court declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise illegal.

Answer 3

declaration of independance stated that slaves were half human
and the dred scott decision made supreme court state slaves had no rights what so ever in america
this helped split the north and south

Answer 4

The courtroom desperate that each and every physique human beings of African ancestry -- slaves as nicely as people who have been loose -- ought to never strengthen into electorate of the U. S. and hence ought to no longer sue in federal courtroom. The courtroom additionally ruled that the federal government did no longer have the skill to restrict slavery in its territories.