Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 48

slaves as propertyThe word “decision” is a clue that we’re talking about the Supreme CourtSupreme Court here ( 5). Dred Scott was a slave whose master traveled quite a bit including stays in free states where slavery was illegal. After Scott’s former owner attempted to sell him to a new owner, Scott sued for his freedom, first at the state and then the federal level and finally before the Supreme Court, which ruled that not only did Dred Scott have no claim to freedom but also that no other slave or any other person descended from Black AfricanBlack Africans even had the right to sue in court, much less the right to freedom. Slaves were property and not citizens. Although Scott’s new owner voluntarily freed him, the most famous slave in the US lived for less than a year in freedom, dying in 1858. The results of the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision were to long outlive the man himself. The sense of outrage at the Court’s decision also led to the growth of the RepublicanRepublican party, which had been founded as an anti-slavery party a few years earlier with a strong belief that slavery should not be allowed in the new states that were being added as settlers moved westwards.