Question

How did the supreme court add to the tensions over slavery in the 1850s?

Answer 1

1857, Roger B. Taney delivered his opinion as chief justice in the Dred Scott v Sandford. In it, he said that Dred Scott was not a U.S. citizen, so he could not sue in U.S. courts that he was a free man. Taney ruled that Scott was bound by Missouri's slave code because he lived in Missouri. Scott's time in free territory did not matter in this case. Taney argued that congress could not ban slavery in the territories. To do so, would violate the slaveholder's property rights, protected by the Fifth Amendment. In effect, Taney declared legislation such as the Missouri compromise unconstitutional.