Did you know that the "Dred Scott Case" was one of the most important cases ever tried in the United States? It started when Scott's former master John Emerson had died and his wife Irene Sanford-Emerson hired out Scott and his family to work for other families. Since that happened, it caused him to file a suit against her for his freedom. This suit had embarked on a legal fight that lasted eleven years, and was finally ended in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court had later issued a milestone decision that kept Scott as a slave. "This decision contributed to rising tensions between the free and slave states just before the American Civil War.".
In the past, Missouri courts had supported the saying of "once free, always free", and in Scott's case he felt as though he should be free. Given that Scott had been living in free territories for almost nine years, yet he never made the attempt to end his services as a slave. Although no one knows why he picked this time to file suit, historians have considered three possibilities: "He may have been dissatisfied with being hired out; Mrs. Emerson might have been planning to sell him; or he may have offered to buy his own freedom and been refused." They say that the suit wasn't for political reasons, but more of hearsay. Now in order to file a suit you must know how to read, how to write, and have money. Unfortunately, Dred Scott did not posses any of these. In spite of that, he looked to his minister, John Anderson, to help him read and write. In addition to having the Blow family, Scott's original owners, back him up financially. Their support helped him through those eleven complicated years.
This case was first put on trial at the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1846. Later on that following year, the court ruled in Mrs. Emerson's favor while dismissing the case; however, allowing the Scott's to re-file their suits. Three years later in a second trial, the jury decides that the Scott's should be free based on their residency in the non-slave territories, i.
