hi
i'm clint smith and this is crash course
black american history
when you think of u.s citizenship
you might think of
your blue passport
or placing your hand over your heart and
saying the pledge of allegiance or
waving an american flag as you watch
fireworks during the 4th of july with a
plate full of bbq
citizenship
is something that matters to people not
only is citizenship a source of pride
for many but it has vast implications
for how someone can live their life
it can determine where you work
where you can travel
whether or not you can vote
and even
if you'll be allowed to stay in the
country with your family but the very
concept of citizenship
who should be a citizen of the united
states and how people should be allowed
to become one
has been at the center of u.s political
debates for centuries
it was happening in the 18th century
and it's still happening today today in
the u.s
according to the law
if you're born in this country
you're considered a citizen
shout out to the 14th amendment
but
it wasn't always this way for black
people in the 19th century the question
of whether they were
or could ever be
citizens of the united states was part
of a decade-long court battle that
centered on the circumstances of a black
man named dred scott though scott's case
which ultimately ended up in the supreme
court as scott v sanford was initially
about whether one man would be able to
live his life as free or enslaved
it became something much larger
centered on the very prospect and
possibility of black citizenship
let's check it out
[Music]
the person at the center of this case
dred scott was an enslaved black man who
was living in missouri
historians estimate that he was born
into slavery around the start of the
19th century in southampton county
virginia and his enslaver was a man
named peterblo
scott was eventually purchased by an
army surgeon named john emerson who
moved scott from the enslaved state of
missouri to the free state of illinois
and then again to the free territory of
wisconsin there
scott met and married his wife harriet
robinson and he started a family
in 1840 john emerson's wife irene
returned to st louis along with dred
scott and his family and in 1843
john died suddenly and dred scott and
his family became the sole property of
irene it's possible that dred scott
attempted to buy he and his family's
freedom from irene but from what
historians can tell
she refused so in 1846 dred scott filed
a suit for his freedom in a saint louis
district court
his claim was based on missouri law and
precedent that if an enslaved person was
relocated to a free state or territory
they were then considered free
and thus they couldn't be re-enslaved
upon entering a slave state and since
john emerson had taken dred scott to
live in both illinois and the wisconsin
territory at various points both of
which were free domains
it seemed like they had a pretty good
case after a bit of back and forth
dred scott did eventually win his
family's freedom in 1850 but the case
got appealed to missouri's supreme court
which ruled against the lower court's
decision while noting quote
times now are not as they were
when the former decisions on the subject
were made
dred scott and his family
were sent back into slavery but scott
kept going
he received assistance from local
abolitionists who helped him file suit
in a federal court by then irene had
left missouri and remarried and for
reasons historians have never quite
figured out the focus of the case went
to her brother
john sanford
the case eventually found its way to the
u.s supreme court but once the case got
there
things
to put it mildly
did not go well
the moment this case arrived at the
supreme court was a pivotal one in the
larger context of u.s history because it
was a time in which the issue of slavery
hugely animated the political debates in
washington as the country expanded at
the beginning of 1820 the united states
was composed of 22 states a big jump
from the original 13 colonies the
louisiana purchase had doubled the land
mass of the country which meant that
there were new states to admit
and what this did was created some real
tension between the north and the south
on the issue of slavery would the new
states be free states
slave states
would they get to decide for themselves
let's go to the thought bubble the
entire nation was dependent on slavery
to some extent but some states as we've
discussed were more directly involved
than others
so
with predominantly northern states
pushing to end slavery and southern
states pushing to keep it in place
it became a bit of a moral and economic
tug of war this dispute
led to the missouri compromise which
designated part of the louisiana
purchase as free territory
and part of it a slave territory which
would balance congressional power as
more states entered the union this
compromise though
came at the expense of black people's
lives but as the united states expanded
more individuals wanted to travel across
state lines
and that
created some unique legal issues
the core of dred scott's legal argument
was that he had lived in free areas of
the country with his enslaver
illinois and the wisconsin territory
the federal government
at this time
did not have specific legislation
addressing the issue
so the united states supreme court
was left to sort things out if an
enslaved person is moved from a slave
state to a free state
is that individual now free what if
you're riding on a train leaving a slave
state and pass through a free state
is that black person free on the train
while it's in the free state
but enslaved again when it passes back
into the slave state
these were big questions that the
country was wrestling with
and the stakes
truly could not have been higher thanks
top bubble the supreme court
didn't buy scott's arguments
and the justices cited 7-2
with sanford
chief justice roger tawny wrote in the
majority opinion that scott did not have
the standing to sue because enslaved
african-americans
weren't citizens of the united states
and if that wasn't enough
justice tawny stated that even free
black people in the north
could never be considered citizens
he wrote that black people quote
are not included and were not intended
to be included
under the word citizens in the
constitution and can therefore claim
none of the rights and privileges which
that instrument provides for and secures
to citizens of the united states and in
outlining the rationale for his decision
he stated that when the constitution was
framed and adopted
black people quote
had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect
i have a lot of feelings about tawny
that are not appropriate to say in this
video
so let's keep going
before i get in trouble
what's more
tawny's decision declared that the ban
on slavery was unconstitutional in
territories that were part of the
louisiana purchase and it also upheld
that neither congress nor territorial
governments had the power to ban slavery
this ruling
infuriated abolitionists who perceived
this as an attempt to prevent any debate
and discussion
about how and where slavery would exist
in the united states
and it further exacerbated the already
high tensions on the issue historians
point to the decision as one of the
factors that more directly set the
country
on the path towards civil war
this was a consequential and deeply
shameful moment in american history
many historians consider it to be the
worst supreme court decision ever
and it's hard not to agree
this decision created a new legal
precedent that solidified black american
status as an underclass
it kept them from being able to vote
from being able to defend themselves
against explicit discrimination
or even domestic terrorism at the hands
of white americans black americans were
sometimes successful in court after scot
v sanford
but that wasn't the norm
and black people were now legally barred
from filing suits at the federal level
what this did
was limit the mobility of their cases
even after the ratification of the 14th
amendment which overturned scott v
sanford by upholding birthright
citizenship
african-americans were still treated in
accordance with the ideas that have been
espoused in the case
and later in this series we'll cover the
experiences of black americans between
the 14th amendment and the passage of
the civil rights act of 1964.
they weren't great
the scot the sanford decision
also hung like a shadow over u.s
immigration policy for decades
scott v sanford though eventually
overturned perpetuated this idea that if
you were not considered a white american
then you were not entitled to dignity or
safety
these ideologies pushed immigrants to
start proving in social settings and in
court that they were wide enough to have
the benefits of citizenship
just to get the basic opportunities in
the united states
and this created deeper divisions
between black americans and many
immigrant populations
according to the historical construction
of race and citizenship in the united
states a 2003 report done by the united
nations research institute for social
development
quote
harder to imagine is conferring on
african americans the degree of respect
and recognition that would make them
full and equal citizens in substance as
well as in law
no other ethno-racial group was enslaved
for two and a half centuries in what
became the united states
or despite the attainment of du jour
citizenship in 1868 was subjected to
such an elaborate and comprehensive
system of legalized discrimination and
segregation there is a long history of
the incorporation of groups that
initially inspired hostility and
discrimination
but which were able to exploit their
putative whiteness to gain entry at the
expense of the perennial other
the african americans who remain to the
present day the principal negative
reference group
against which white
or non-black america
persist in defining itself
this is a powerful quote and a sobering
one
and what it shows is that while there
most certainly has been discrimination
against many different groups of people
throughout u.s history
discrimination that must be taken
seriously
there is a specific sort of
insidiousness to the nature of
anti-black racism that is important for
us to understand if we are going to
fully account for our history
thanks for watching
i'll see you next time
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