## Facts

- Dred Scott, an enslaved man, was owned in Missouri by Army surgeon Dr. John Emerson.
- Emerson took Scott to live for extended periods in Illinois (a free state) and at Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was barred by federal law.
- At Fort Snelling, Scott married Harriet Robinson; the family lived in free territory for years and performed labor arranged by Emerson.
- After Emerson died, Scott and his family were claimed by Emerson’s widow and later by her brother, John F. A. Sandford.
- Scott sought to buy his family’s freedom; after refusal, he sued asserting that residence in free jurisdictions made them free under prior Missouri practice.

## Issues

1. Whether a person of African descent whose ancestors were brought to the United States and enslaved could be a “citizen” for Article III diversity jurisdiction.
2. If jurisdiction existed, whether Scott’s residence in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory made him free.
3. Whether Congress had constitutional power to prohibit slavery in federal territories, including by the Missouri Compromise.

## Decision

- The Court held Scott was not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution for Article III purposes and therefore could not invoke federal diversity jurisdiction; the circuit court lacked jurisdiction.
- The Court further concluded that Congress lacked authority to bar slavery in the territories and declared the Missouri Compromise’s territorial slavery prohibition unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause as a deprivation of property.
- The Court stated that, even apart from jurisdiction, Scott’s residence in free jurisdictions did not emancipate him in light of Missouri’s highest court rejecting the “once free, always free” doctrine; Scott remained enslaved.
- Dissents argued that free Black persons were citizens in several states at the founding, that the Court should not decide merits after finding no jurisdiction, and that Congress had authority to regulate the territories, including restricting slavery.

## Legal Principles

- Persons of African descent whose ancestors were brought to the United States and sold as slaves were not “citizens” for Article III diversity jurisdiction and could not sue in federal court on that basis.
- Congress may not prohibit slavery in federal territories when such prohibition would deprive slaveholders of claimed property rights in enslaved persons without due process under the Fifth Amendment.
- An enslaved person’s status after residence in a free jurisdiction could be determined by the law of the slave state as interpreted by its highest court, rather than by the free jurisdiction’s law, where the person returned and suit was brought under that state’s rules.

## Conclusion

The Court dismissed the federal action for lack of Article III jurisdiction on the ground that Scott was not a constitutional “citizen,” and it additionally invalidated the Missouri Compromise’s territorial slavery ban while rejecting Scott’s claim that residence in free jurisdictions made him free.


Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)