History
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On April 6, 1846, a slave named Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom in this courthouse. The Scotts had been taken by their owner to free jurisdictions and then returned to Missouri, a slave state. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of the U.S. Supreme Court announced the decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. He stated that Americans of African ancestry were not eligible to be citizens, based on the historical claim that they "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Taney's opinion also declared that Congress could not prevent the spread of slavery into the Western territories. This decision fueled sectional conflict which led to the Civil War.
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East St. Louis, Illinois · United States
