Answer: Slavery was a point of contention in the United States since the country's founding. The disagreement intensified as the 1800s began. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise established a boundary that wouldn't allow new slave states above this line. Dred Scott had been taken by his owner to an area in which slavery had been made illegal because of the Missouri Compromise.
The case <em>Dred Scott v. Sanford</em> was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court. In this case, Dred Scott, an enslaved black man, sued in court for his freedom. He argued that his owners had taken him from Missouri into the Missouri Territory, which was a "free" territory. The court ruled that Scott could not sue in court as he was not considered an American citizen due to his African ancestry, regardless of whether he was a slave or not.
In the late 1800s, the United States experienced a tremendous growth in industrialization. Led by oil, steel, and other manufacturing industries, the United States had become the world’s leading producer of manufactured goods by 1900.
