Dred Scott was an African-American slave who sued unsuccessfully for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "The Dred Scott Decision." His case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, he had lived with his master Dr. John Emerson in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota, which was then part of the Wisconsin Territory. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. While Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and Congressional authority by this decision, it aroused outrage and deepened sectional tensions. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and the post-Civil war Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments were created explicitly to counter aspects of this decision. Taney, a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting southerners from northern aggression, wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The family that owned Dred Scott and his family had relocated to Missouri and become opponents of slavery. They granted the Scotts emancipation on May 26, 1857, less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling. Scott went to work as a porter in St. Louis for nearly 17 months before he died from tuberculosis in September 1858.
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