The first ruling that came from the Scott vs. Sandford case did not consider the bigger picture at the time of Negro citizenship and the legality of the Missouri compromise and was therefore ruled in favor of Sandford. The original judge for this case was Justice Nelson who was later replaced by Roger B. Taney because Nelson had wrote the decision based solely on his opinion. There were many drafts of the decision had to be made because of how controversial the topic was. The problem with this case is that there was no actual distinction in the constitution regarding slaves and other properties. Although the case did rule the Missouri compromise to be unconstitutional because technically it took away slaveholders “property” which was slaves. Instead of ruling that Scott was free because if his residence in the Free State Illinois Taney ruled that he still was a slave because he escaped from Missouri which was a slave state. This meant that even though he had escaped he must be returned to his former state because he is the property of his slaveholder. So in the end the case was still ruled towards Sandford. This decision greatly strengthened the laws behind slavery also because slaves were not allowed to sue, new states were up to their own jurisdiction to choose whether they would be a slave or free state. Also it was ruled that the congress had no right to prohibit slavery in federal states.
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