1847: Dred Scott and the Freedom Suits
As the public debate over free versus slave states continued, an African American slave named Dred Scott pushed the conversation further.
Scott sued for his and his family’s freedom arguing that they had been enslaved in a free state and therefore should be released as free. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney led the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Scott’s argument. The Court asserted that “negroes, whether slave or free, were not citizens of the United States” (Bogan, 1990, p. 381) and therefore ineligible to make this appeal for freedom in front of the Court.
Not surprisingly, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney had been born in Smith County, Maryland, to a tobacco farming family who owned slaves (Bogen, 1990, pp. 381-382). This decision, in line with the 1790 Naturalization Act, continued to define Black persons as inferior and not eligible for citizenship in the United States.
Dred and Harriet Scott.
Source: Wikipedia
Many “Freedom Suits” arose as a result of Missouri’s “once free, always free” judicial standard.
While Scott lost his case, he was one of many Black enslaved persons who sued for their freedom in St. Louis. Known as the “Freedom Suits,” enslaved Black men and women in St. Louis sued for their freedom citing Missouri’s judicial standard that guaranteed “once free, always free” (Hays, 2022). Slaves who had been taken to a free state and spent enough time there to be considered a “resident,” used this statute to sue for their freedom when they returned to St. Louis. While not all cases were decided in favor of the enslaved person, nearly a third of those who brought suit won their cases (Hays). Click here to see the list of known Freedom Suits and their outcomes.