Dred Scott Symposium

Washington University will host a symposium, March 1-3, marking the 150th anniversary of the landmark Dred Scott Decision. The symposium is free and open to the public. The keynote lecture will be presented by Michael A. Wolff, Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, speaking on March 1st, at 4 p.m. in Graham Chapel.

A Summary of the Dred Scott Case

Dred and Harriet Scott were slaves who sued for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1846. Later their cases were combined under Dred Scott's name, with any decision applying to both individuals. The case advanced all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, which heard the case in 1857. The Supreme Court not only voided the Missouri Compromise, which had allowed Congress to ban slavery in the territories, but also ruled that as a slave, Dred Scott could not sue in federal court and that as an African American he could never gain the rights of full American citizenship. In perhaps the most infamous decision ever made by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that African Americans were "so far inferior" that they "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

The momentous Dred Scott Decision - particularly the voiding of the Missouri Compromise - intensified the debate over slavery, leading eventually to the Civil War. In a twist of fate, the Scotts were freed later in 1857 by St. Louisan Taylor Blow whose family had once owned Dred Scott but who had become a friend and supporter of Dred Scott's lawsuit for freedom. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis in 1858.

For details about the symposium, visit http://artsci.wustl.edu/~acsp/dred.scott/

For more information about the Dred Scott case, visit http://library.wustl.edu/vlib/dredscott/.

Date of announcement: 2/15/07