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Hi! I’m Clint Smith and this is 
Crash Course Black American History.  

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When you think of US citizenship, you might 
think of your blue passport, or placing your  

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hand over your heart and saying the pledge 
of allegiance, or waving an American flag  

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as you watch fireworks during the 4th 
of July with a plate full of barbecue.  

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Citizenship is something that matters to people.
Not only is citizenship a source of pride for  

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many, but it has vast implications for how 
someone can live their life. It can determine  

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where you work, where you can travel, whether or 
not you can vote, and even if you’ll be allowed  

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to stay in the country with your family.
But the very concept of citizenship--who  

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should be a citizen of the United States and 
how people should be allowed to become one--has  

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been at the center of US political debates for 
centuries. It was happening in the 18th century,  

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and it’s still happening today. 
Today, in the US, according to the law,  

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if you’re born in this country you’re considered 
a citizen. Shout out to the 14th amendment. But  

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it wasn’t always this way. For 
Black people in the 19th century,  

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the question of whether they were, or could ever 
be, citizens of the United States, was part of  

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a decade-long court battle that centered on the 
circumstances of a Black man named Dred Scott.
 

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Though Scott’s case, which ultimately ended 
up in the Supreme Court as Scott v. Sandford,  

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was initially about whether one man would be able 
to live his life as free or enslaved, it became  

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something much larger, centered on the very 
prospect and possibility of Black citizenship.  

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Let’s check it out.
INTRO
 

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The person at the center of this case, Dred 
Scott, was an enslaved Black man who was  

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living in Missouri. Historians estimate that he 
was born into slavery around the start of the  

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19th century in Southhampton County, Virgina, 
and his enslaver was a man named Peter Blow. 
 

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Scott was eventually purchased by 
an army surgeon named John Emerson,  

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who moved Scott from the enslaved state 
of Missouri, to the free state of Illinois  

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and then again to the free territory of Wisconsin. 
There, Scott met and married his wife, Harriet  

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Robinson, and they started a family. By 1840 
John Emerson’s wife Irene returned to St. Louis  

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along with Dred Scott and his family. 
And in 1843, John died suddenly,  

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and Scott and his family became the sole property 
of Irene. It’s possible that Dred Scott attempted  

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to buy he and his family’s freedom from Irene, 
but from what historians can tell, she refused. 
 

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In 1846 Dred Scott filed a suit for his freedom 
in a St. Louis district court. His claim was based  

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on Missouri law and precedent that if an enslaved 
person was relocated to a free state or territory,  

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they were then considered free, and 
thus they couldn’t be re-enslaved  

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upon entering a slave state. And since 
John Emerson had taken Dred Scott to live  

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in both Illinois and the Wisconsin territory at 
various points--both of which were free domains--  

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it seemed like they had a pretty good case. 
After a bit of back and forth  

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Dred Scott eventually did win his 
family’s freedom in 1850. 
 

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But the case got appealed to Missouri’s Supreme 
Court, which ruled against the lower court’s  

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decision while noting, quote "Times now are 
not as they were, when the former decisions  

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on this subject were made.” Dred Scott and 
his family were sent back into slavery.
 

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But Scott kept going. He received assistance from 
local abolitionists who helped him file suit in a  

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federal court. By then Irene had left Missouri 
and remarried, and for reasons historians have  

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never quite figured out, the focus of the case 
went to her brother, John Sanford. The case  

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eventually found its way to the US Supreme 
Court. But once the case got there,  

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things, to put it mildly, did not go well.
The moment this case arrived at the Supreme  

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Court was a pivotol one in the larger context 
of US history, because it was a time in which  

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the issue of slavery hugley animated the political 
debates in Washington as the country expanded. 
 

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At the beginning of 1820, the United States was 
composed of 22 states – a big jump up from the  

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original 13 colonies. The Louisiana Purchase 
had doubled the landmass of the country  

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which meant that there were new states to admit. 
And what this did was created some real tension  

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between the north and the south on the issue of 
slavery. Would the new states be free states?  

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Slave states? Would they get to decide for 
themselves? Let’s go to the thought bubble.
 

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The entire nation was dependent on slavery to 
some extent, but some states, as we’ve discussed,  

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were more directly involved than others. So, 
with predominately northern states pushing to  

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end slavery, and southern states pushing 
to keep it in place, it became a bit of a  

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moral and economic tug-of-war.
This dispute led to the Missouri Compromise  

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which designated part of the Louisiana Purchase as 
free territory and part of it as slave territory,  

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which would balance congressional power as more 
states entered the Union. This compromise, though,  

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came at the expense of Black people’s lives.
But as the United States expanded,  

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more individuals wanted to 
travel across state lines,  

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and that created some unique legal issues. The 
core of Dred Scott’s legal argument was that he  

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had lived in free areas of the country with his 
enslaver – Illinois and the Wisconsin territory.
 

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The federal government, at this time, 
did not have specific legislation  

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addressing the issue, so the United States 
Supreme Court was left to sort things out. If  

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an enslaved person is moved from a slave state 
to a free state, is that individual now free?
 

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What if you’re riding on a train leaving a 
slave state, and pass through a free state?  

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Is that Black person free on the train while 
it’s in the free state but enslaved again when  

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it passes back into a slave state? These were big 
questions that the country was wrestling with.  

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And the stakes couldn’t have been higher.
Thanks, Thought Bubble. 
 

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The Supreme Court ultimately did not buy Scott’s 
arguments and justices sided 7-2 with Sanford.
 

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Chief Justice Roger Taney 
wrote in the majority opinion  

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that Scott did not, because he didn’t have the 
standing to sue because enslaved African-Americans  

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were not citizens of the United States.  
And if that wasn’t enough,  

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Justice Taney stated that even free Black 
people in the north could never be considered  

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citizens. He wrote that Black people "are not 
included, and were not intended to be included,  

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under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, 
and can therefore claim none of the rights and  

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privileges which that instrument provides for 
and secures to citizens of the United States."
 

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And in outlining the rationale for his decision he 
stated that when the Constitution was framed and  

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adopted, Black people “had no rights which 
the White man was bound to respect." 
 

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I have a lot of feelings about Taney that 
aren’t appropriate to say in this video.  

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So let’s keep going before I get in trouble.
What’s more, Taney’s decision declared that the  

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ban on slavery was unconstitutional in territories 
that were part of the Louisiana Purchase and it  

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also upheld that neither Congress nor territorial 
governments had the power to ban slavery. 
 

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This ruling infuriated abolitionists 
who perceived this an an attempt  

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to prevent any debate and discussion about how and 
where slavery would exist in the United States,  

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and further exacerbated the already high tensions 
on the issue. Historians point to the decision as  

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one of the factors that more directly set 
the country on the path towards Civil War.
 

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This was a consequential, and deeply 
shameful moment in American history.  

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Many historians consider it to be 
the worst Supreme Court decision  

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ever. And it’s hard not to agree.
This decision created a new legal precedent  

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that solidified Black Americans’ status as an 
underclass. It kept them from being able to vote,  

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from being able to defend themselves against 
explicit discrimination or even domestic terrorism  

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at the hands of white Americans. Black Americans 
were sometimes successful in court after Scott v.  

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Sandford, but that wasn’t the norm, AND 
Black people were now legally barred  

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from filing suits at the federal level. What 
this did was limit the mobility of their cases.
 

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Even after the ratification of the 14th Amendment 
– which overturned Scott v. Sandford by upholding  

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birthright citizenship – African-Americans were 
still treated in accordance with the ideas that  

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had been espoused in the case. And later in 
this series we’ll cover the experiences of  

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Black Americans between the 14th Amendment and 
the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

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They were not great.
The Scott v. Sandford decision  

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also hung like a shadow over US immigration 
policy for decades. Scott v. Sandford – though  

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eventually overturned – perpetuated this idea 
that if you were not considered a white American  

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then you were not entitled to dignity or safety.
These ideologies pushed immigrants to start  

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proving in social settings and in 
court that they were White enough  

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to have the benefits of citizenship, just to 
get basic opportunities in the United States.  

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And this created deeper divisions between Black 
Americans and many immigrant populations.
 

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According to “The Historical Construction of 
Race and Citizenship in the United States” – a  

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2003 report done by the United Nations 
Research Institute for Social Development:
 

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“Harder to imagine is conferring on 
African-Americans the degree of respect  

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and recognition that would make them full and 
equal citizens in substance as well as in law.  

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No other ethnoracial group was 
enslaved for two-and-a-half centuries  

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in what became the United States, or, despite 
the attainment of de jure citizenship in 1868,  

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was subjected to such an elaborate and 
comprehensive system of legalized discrimination  

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and segregation. There is a long history of the 
incorporation of groups that initially inspired  

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hostility and discrimination but which were 
able to exploit their putative whiteness to gain  

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entry at the expense of the perennial Other: the 
African-Americans who remain to the present day  

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the principal negative reference 
group against which white--or  

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non-black--America persists in defining itself.”
This is a powerful quote and a sobering one.  

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And what it shows is that while there has 
most certainly been discrimination against  

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many different groups of people throughout 
US history-- discrimination that must be  

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taken seriously--there is a specific sort of 
insidiousness to the nature of anti-black racism  

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that is important for us to understand if we 
are to fully account for our history.
 

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Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.
Crash Course is made with the help of all these  

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nice people and our animation team is Thought 
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