Question

summarize the dred scott decision !

Answer 1

The Dred Scott decision was an 1857 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent brought into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants, (whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens. The Court had hoped to resolve the slavery issue with the decision but it had the opposite effect. The Court’s decision was so contentious that some go as far as to suggest that the Dred Scott decision caused the Civil War. Although such an assertion is rejected by most legal and historical scholars, it is nevertheless acknowledged that the decision did play an important role in the timing of state secession and the Civil War.