Minnesota Territorial Legislature

Transcription

[ Justice Taney ] The black race has for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect. [ Lea Vandervelde ] Dred Scott’s image was that individual who was denied his freedom, that individual who was treated poorly by the courts, that individual whose case the nation had lost. This is a case that split the United States in two. It could never really be healed through conventional means. [ Narrator ] Dred Scott was born into slavery in Virginia.   His long struggle for freedom was one link in a chain of events that would eventually free more than four million enslaved people. Purchased in a Missouri slave market by Army Doctor John Emerson, Scott was brought to Fort Snelling in 1836 by way of Fort Armstrong in Illinois. When the frontier moved west, Fort Armstrong was no longer needed so the entire infantry, including Dr. Emerson, was transferred to Fort Snelling. [ Vandervelde ] The slaves in Minnesota were different than the slaves in the south. They made the beds, they made the food and did the things that the people who were officers couldn’t do for themselves. [ Richard Josey ] I think we see Dred Scott more as a personal manservant or like a butler, a steward. Anything that Dr. Emerson needed, Dred was going to be taking care of that. But it is a very different culture than Virginia. He may have seen this as the lesser of two evils. [ Vandervelde ] And when he came to Fort Snelling, there was already a young girl slave, Harriet. Owned, if she could be owned in free territory, by Major Lawrence Taliaferro. Major Taliaferro was leaving for the winter and he wasn’t going to take Harriet with him. And the way to leave her there was to leave her married to somebody who was going to be within the protection of the fort’s walls. [ Narrator ] Scott and his wife Harriet remained at Fort Snelling until 1840. They first sued for their freedom six years later. [ Vandervelde ] They were one of at least 300 slaves who had sued for freedom in the St. Louis courts before. The majority of them won, because they, like the Scotts, had lived in free territory. [ Narrator ] In the midst of dramatic national events, The Missouri State Supreme court reversed an earlier decision granting Dred and Harriet their freedom. [ Vandervelde ] The case came to the United States Supreme Court after eleven years of litigation. Eleven years the Scotts were in limbo. [ Narrator ] The Scotts based their United States Supreme Court case on their residence in lands that were part of the old Northwest Territory and the 1820 Missouri Compromise, territory where slavery was prohibited. In their landmark 1857 decision the Court declared that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in passing those enactments. [ Vandervelde ] Consider the extent of that: the United States Supreme Court declared that the freedom provision, under the Northwest Ordinance, was unconstitutional. The Scotts would have no basis to claim their freedom under that. [ Narrator ] Further, on a technical matter, in order to get a case into federal court, you had to be a citizen of one of the states. The Court, in a 7 to 2 decision, declared that the Scotts were not citizens of any state. [ Vandervelde ] Not only did Dred and Harriet lose, their slavery being maintained. The secondary dimension of this was that no persons of color, free persons of color as well, were deemed to have any rights that white men were deemed to respect. [ Minnesotian Reporter ] We have watched with increasing anxiety the progress of the opinions of the United States Court on the Dred Scott case, until it has finally reached a conclusion, literally making slaveholding legal throughout all the northern states. [ Vandervelde ] The antipathy that was directed at the United States Supreme Court by newspapers was extraordinarily strong. The self-satisfaction that southern newspapers reported was equally strong. [ Northern Reporter ] It is one of the most atrocious law opinions that has ever disgraced the history of… [ Southern Reporter ] At a single blow it shatters and destroys the platform of the Republican party. [ Northern Reporter ] Five of the Supreme Court’s nine silk gowns are worn by Slaveholders! [ Southern Reporter ] The Dred Scott decision will bring the enemies of the South face to face with the Constitution of their country. [ Northern Reporter ] We can but foresee that this decision will create, everywhere, a profound sensation. [ Frederick Douglass ] This very attempt to blot out forever the hopes of an enslaved people may be one necessary link in the chain of events preparatory to the downfall and complete overthrow of the whole slave system. [ Richard Josey ] After the court case, they were still legally considered slaves. Dred and Harriet eventually did acquire their freedom. Dred died as a free man. [ Vandervelde ] I’m not sure that the Dred Scott case itself would have caused the Civil War, if South Carolina hadn’t been primed to secede. Their decision was in part based on northern reaction to Dred Scott. There couldn’t be a legislative compromise, because the Supreme Court decision took away Congressional power to eliminate slavery. There was no political future, short of Civil War. [ Narrator ] Today, Minnesotans can get a glimpse of Fort Snelling as Dred and Harriet Scott experienced it more than 150 years ago. [ Interpreter ] You’ve just come into a place where two of the most famous people who have ever been here at the fort lived. Dred and Harriet Scott. [ Josey ] Dred’s role is one of an agent of change. He didn’t accept his circumstance, nor did his wife. They sought change, not only for themselves, but for their future generations.