Dred Scott Decision
How did this help Start the Civil War?
How it started?
- Dred Scott was a slave in the State of Missouri.
- He master had to move to free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin, because he was a U.S Army Officer.
- He lived on Free soil for a very long time.
- The Army ordered His Master back to the Slave state of Missouri, and he took Scott back with him.
- Scott's master died right after going back.
The Reason it Led to the Civil War.
- Scott had gotten Abolitionist lawyers, to help him sue for claiming he should be free since he had lived on free soil for a long time.
- This went all the way to the United States Supreme Court
- They told him that he could not be free, that he was property.
- Southerners approved the Dred Scott decision believing Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories.
- Abraham Lincoln reacted with disgust to the ruling and was spurred into political action, publicly speaking out against it.
Dred Scott decision had the effect of widening the political and social gap between North and South and took the nation closer to the brink of Civil War.