Why did the Dred Scott decision show abolitionists that outlawing slavery was nearly impossible?

Answer 1

Because, in fact, it DID -- the decision explicitly BARRED Congress from outlawing slavery in the territories, which was the very procedure Northern opponents of slavery (whether "abolitionist" or not) were relying on.

So far people have focused on the first part of the decision. As important as that piece is, it was NOT the critical one for the question of SLAVE LEGISLATION.

Also, previous answers statements that they decision declared SLAVES could not be citizens. That's not really the point. SLAVES not being citizens might not have been such an issue. What Chief Justice Taney actually wrote was that NO black --not even a FREE black-- could be a citizen of the United States (as opposed to being a citizen of an individual state), which meant they had no guarantee of rights from the FEDERAL government and no right to the federal court system.
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But again, that was not the key part fot your question. Rather it was his decision that Congress had extremely limited power over the territories and COULD NOT bar slavery in U.S. territories. In fact, to do so would be a violation of the PROPERTY rights of U.S. citizens (that is, slaveowners), guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the Constitution.

Now observe that a central tenant of the 'Free Soil' movement, and foundational to the very existence of the Republican Party was the notion that Congress COULD keep slavery out of the territories. Their strategy was to keep slavery from spreading, by keeping it out of the territories. Thus slavery would be contained in one region of the country. Most understood that, according to the Constitution, Congress had no authority to outlaw slavery in the states. But if it were contained they expected it would, in time, die out as current slave states would themselves pass laws to end it, just as other states had done.

But Taney's decision said that they COULD NOT "contain" slavery. In fact, Taney went further in the third part of his decision for he ruled (contrary to earlier precedents) that a slave brought into a free territory OR free STATE was not thereby rendered free (as he would be by the laws of the free state). Republicans feared --and certain Southerners hoped -- that the NEXT step would be for the Court to declare that no STATE could bar slaves/slavery within its borders, in short turning ALL states into "slave states". (Some regard this as an unwarranted fear, but there is some evidence that just such a decision was being contemplated when the Civil War broke out. Chandra Manning's recent book *What this Cruel War was Over* mentions it, though unfortunately, I do not have access to the article she cites.)

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If it will help, here is a bit more about TANEY'S ARGUMENT that Congress could not keep slavery out of the territories

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....)

Answer 2

It showed abolitionists that there were many figures in the national government who sympathized with the Southern cause, and that any advancement of their own ideologies would be hard to come by. Northerners for years had been wary of a "slave power conspiracy," that white Southerners held too many positions of power in Washington. And nothing could personify that more than the administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, presidents with Southern biases. When Dred Scott basically declared that slaves weren't citizens and that they had no rights of a citizen, abolitionists became even more disillusioned.

Answer 3

I think it goes among the lines that the ruling established that slaves were not citizens and therefore the rights granted in the 5th amendment did not apply to them, it impeded slaves from even filing a complaint or a lawsuit.

with dred scott, the supreme court established a law in which the master's right of property is more important than the slave's right for freedom, showing the supreme court's opinion being radically pro-slavery and that there was little chance for a dissenting opinion to pass.

Answer 4

Since the Supreme Court ruled that a Slave was not a citizen and was in fact property, and the Supreme Court's ruling is final, outlawing slavery was, in fact, illegal. The only way Lincoln was able to do so was via martial law and the Radical Republicans passing a Amendments 13-15 before the South came out from, under Martial Law.

Answer 5

The decision meant that slaves were not citizens, therefore, they were not entitled to any of the rights outlined in the Constitution.

Answer 6

it started off by saying that a slave could not even sue