History of the United States I / Unit 17 USH1 2405 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Court for the Slaveholder
The idea
In eighteen fifty-seven Taney held that Black people could never be citizens of the United States, that enslaved people were property protected by the federal government, and that Congress lacked authority to bar slavery from the territories. The decision made the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and implicitly invalidated popular sovereignty, destroying both available compromises in one opinion. Unit 14 entry 2000 covers the ruling and Unit 11 entry 1519 covers the line it struck down.
In practice
One decision removing the geographic settlement of eighteen twenty and the local-majority settlement of eighteen fifty at the same time.
Where people slip
This is the hinge of the whole theme. Before Dred Scott the Constitution was what the parties argued about. After it, the Constitution had been declared to hold one of the two positions, which left the losing side no lawful route to its aim. A Republican Party whose entire platform had been ruled unconstitutional could change the Court, amend the document, or lose. Within a decade it had done the second.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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