Dred Scott: The Inside Story - Softcover

Hardy, Mr. David T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1795066636 ISBN 13: 9781795066631

Publisher: Independently published, 2019

Synopsis

The Supreme Court, 1857. Chief Justice Taney sets out to protect slavery forever. Instead, he hands Abraham Lincoln a road map to the White House. Imagine a reality in which people can own other people (buying them with or without a warranty), or a person can buy himself, and become free. A reality in which slaves can sue their masters, and prove they are free. Into this not-alternate reality came a remarkable cast of Americans:

• Dred and Harriet Scott - the slaves whose suit for freedom sparked a battle in the Supreme Court and in the White House.
• John F. A. Sanford - the mountain man turned New York millionaire, who agreed to pose as the Scotts' owner so the suit could be filed.
• Rep. Calvin Chaffee - the prominent Massachusetts abolitionist, who was shocked to discover that he and his wife owned slaves, indeed the most famous slaves in the United States.
• Roger Taney - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who tried to preserve the Union by protecting slavery, and instead brought on the Civil War and slavery's abolition.
• James Buchanan - the President who secretly connived with pro-slavery Justices, seeking a ruling that would let slavery spread throughout the territories.
• Abraham Lincoln - the failed frontier politician who used the ruling to become a national figure.

     David T. Hardy, attorney and N.Y. Times best-selling author, explores the side of Dred Scott not revealed in the history books, a side that involved mistakes, trickery, and skulduggery at the highest levels.      Dred Scott's attorneys sued a man who had no real claim to being Scott's slaveholder, and he went along with it to hide the identity of the person whom they should have sued. Scott's attorneys were tricked into filing suit by a former Attorney General, who now represented the slavery cause. President Buchanan entered into secret correspondence with two pro-slavery Justices, who told him of the Court's deliberations and the vote count, and advised him on how to describe the case in his Inaugural Address. The President, in turn, lobbied a Justice to change his opinion and rule that the Constitution forbade any restriction on slavery in the western territories.      The traditional history portrays the case as a local dispute that a St. Louis attorney appealed to the Supreme Court, where the pro-slavery side brought in its top Supreme Court attorney, and won. But Dred Scott: The Inside Story cites a hitherto-unpublished account by an eyewitness, showing that that attorney was engineering the case even before it was filed. He planned it from the beginning as a test case that would strike down Congressional power to restrict slavery. His victory had that result - but the Law of Unintended Consequences applied.     A rising leader named Abraham Lincoln seized upon the ruling as evidence that the President and the Court had colluded to make slavery universal. His opponent, Stephen Douglas, reacted by taking a position that fractured the Democratic Party, leading to a four-way presidential race. The resulting divided vote ensured that Lincoln won the White House and brought on the Civil War, causing three new constitutional amendments, the abolition of slavery in the United States, and the beginning of America's rise to superpower status.    All in all, it was an impressive outcome for an elderly slave's quest for his freedom, represented by an attorney who couldn't count votes.

About this edition

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1795066636
• ISBN 13: 9781795066631
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 102