Week Three: Scott vs. Sanford (1857)
The latest Our American Values series focuses on the US Supreme Court and the role it has played in the struggle for civil rights. This new series has three parts. First, we look at two cases that established the principle of judicial review of actions by federal (1803) and state (1817) government. Second, we look at a series of Supreme Court cases decided between 1857 and 1944. These cases made it easier for governments to deny individuals their rights and so each made the moral arc of the universe a little longer. Finally, we look at a series of cases decided between 1886 and 1983 that moved America forward toward justice. For this new series, we draw on some very short (thirty second to four-minute videos) from C-SPAN Classroom.
This week, we start looking at five cases that made it easier to deny persons their rights and so made the arc of the moral universe that much longer. Scott vs. Sanford (1857), led to what is generally considered to be the single worst decision ever rendered by the US Supreme Court. In this case, popularly known as “The Dred Scott Case, the Court held that a black man - no matter free or slave - could never be a U.S. citizen or sue in federal court. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Taney put it this way, “(African Americans) had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…” Five short videos (one to nine minutes each) from C-SPAN Classroom appear at the link below. For the fullest view of the case, play all five. To focus more narrowly on the Taney Court’s decision and its legacy, play numbers four and five.