The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1979, this masterful examination of the most famous example of judicial failure--the case referred to as "the most frequently overturned decision in history." On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Supreme Court's decision against Dred Scott, a slave who maintained he had been emancipated as a result of having lived with his master in the free state of Illinois and in federal territory where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. The decision did much more than resolve the fate of an elderly black man and his family; Dred Scott v. Sanford was the first instance in which the Supreme Court invalidated a major piece of federal legislation. The decision declared that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the federal territories, thereby striking a severe blow at the the legitimacy of the emerging Republican party and intensifying the sectional conflict over slavery. This book represents a skillful review of the issues before America on the eve of the Civil War. The first third of the book deals directly with the with the case itself and the Court's decision, while the remainder puts the legal and judicial question of slavery into the broadest possible American context. Fehrenbacher discusses the legal bases of slavery, the debate over the Constitution, and the dispute over slavery and continental expansion. He also considers the immediate and long-range consequences of the decision.

Table of Contents:
Introduction PART ONE: OUT OF THE PAST 1: Race, Slavery, and the Origins of the Republic 2: Slavery in the American Constitutional System 3: The Pursuit of Freedom 4: Expansion and Slavery in Early National Politics 5: Expansion and Slavery in a Continental Republic 6: The Territorial Question, 1848-1854 7: Toward Judicial Resolution 8: The Taney Court and Judicial Power PART TWO: A DECADE OF LITIGATION 9: Dred Scott and His Travels 10: Versus Emerson 11: Versus Sandford 12: Before the Supreme Court 13: Voices in Confusion 14: What the Court Decided 15: The Opinion of the Court: Negroes and Citizenship 16: The Opinion of the Court: Slavery in the Territories 17: Concurrence and Dissent PART THREE: CONSEQUENCES AND ECHOES 18: The Judges Judged 19: The Lecompton Connection 20: The Freeport Doctrine 21: Not Peace But a Sword 22: Reasons Why 23: In the Stream of History Notes Index

About the Author :
The late Don E. Fehrenbacher was William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies at Stanford University.

Review :
"Probably the most thorough study of any Supreme Court decision ever undertaken."--C. Vann Woodward, The New York Review of Books "A masterful reexamination of some of the most complex and enduring American constitutional problems...I know of no other book on the slavery controversy that contributes so much to the specialist's knowledge yet is so readily accessible to the general reader."--David Herbert Donald, Chronicle of Higher Education "Fehrenbacher's book is the best history of a landmark constitutional case ever written, but it is far more: it is a probing and lucid study of slavery in American political and legal history....A masterpiece of the historian's art." --Richard B. Bernstein, Harvard Law Record "A study of the Supreme Court's 1857 decision that invalidated Congress' power to prohibit slavery in federal territories and its effects today."--The Chicago Tribune "[A] monumental study of Dred Scott."--Civil War Book Review "Probably the most thorough study of any Supreme Court decision ever undertaken."--C. Vann Woodward, The New York Review of Books "A masterful reexamination of some of the most complex and enduring American constitutional problems...I know of no other book on the slavery controversy that contributes so much to the specialist's knowledge yet is so readily accessible to the general reader."--David Herbert Donald, Chronicle of Higher Education "Fehrenbacher's book is the best history of a landmark constitutional case ever written, but it is far more: it is a probing and lucid study of slavery in American political and legal history....A masterpiece of the historian's art." --Richard B. Bernstein, Harvard Law Record "This book confirms Fehrenbacher's preeminence among historians of the sectional controversy."--Stanley I. Kutler, The Journal of American History