This depends entirely on what you mean by a "test case." His lawsuit in Missouri was to gain freedom. It was not brought by "abolitionists" and it was paid for by the Virginia born sons of his old owner (who I believe still owned slaves themselves). This is all set out pretty clearly in Don Fehrenbacher's The Dred Scott Case which won the Pulitzer Prize. There were NO abolitionists or even well known antislavery men involved in the appeal to the Supreme Court. Scott's case was argued by a very conservative "cotton" Whig (George T. Curtis) known for him open and enthusiastic support of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and his hatred of abolitionists.
Do any of you have an evidence for arguing it was brought by abolitionists, in the face of Fehrenbacher's massive book?
Why did his owners contest the case? Initially because Mrs. Emerson wanted (needed) her household slaves. Hard to run a middle class household in St. Louis without them. When the case began the Scotts were rented out and all their rent money was held in escrow. By 1857 when it finally ended in the Supreme Court that represented a significant sum of money -- about ten years rent on two adult slaves (the case was first filed in 1846). So, defending the case was economically sensible. When it went to the US Supreme Court (for the 2nd time) Sanford was represented by a high profile proslavery lawyers some of whom were politicians.
,
Oddly, and this is truly odd the abolitionist press, ignored the case for the most part, and no prominent members of the new Republican Party were involved. Sanford, on the other hand, was represented by proslavery politicians and lawyers.
If this were a "test case" it would seem it was brought by proslavery people who had been arguing for decades that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
----
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208
518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)
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www.paulfinkelman.com
________________________________
From: David Kiracofe <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Dred Scott decision--Scott was freed
Craig,
I believe you are right about Scott's case as a test case that they expected to lose. Radical abolitionists held that repentance for the sin of slavery was the necessary key to the ending of the institution and that human efforts -- legislatures, petitions, voting, etc. were all flawed, indeed futile, instruments in comparison. This was part of their essential anarchism. But they could point to the real failures of legislative compromise (Missouri Compromise scuttled), and popular voting (Kansas), and the expectation among them was that the Dred Scott decision would demonstrate that courts -- even the Supreme Court -- were no more able to resolve the issue than those. Knowing the make-up of that court made it all but a safe bet.
David Kiracofe
________________________________________
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Kilby [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 6:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Dred Scott decision--Scott was freed
Perhaps this is a mere footnote, but In the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision, Scott (and presumably his wife Harriet) was freed by a new owner after the Supreme Court decision. He died in St. Louis in 1858. The St. Louis Visitors and Convention Commission has an interesting sub-link called "Multi-Cultural St. Louis" which covers this, and Elijah Lovejoy. Not detailed, of course, but a fair summary of what happened.
http://explorestlouis.com/media-page/news-releases-newsroom/releases/multicultural-st-louis/
Craig Kilby
P.S. Now WHY do I remember once reading that Scott's owners were not really interested in winning this case, and in fact they had bascially granted Scott his de facto freedom. The intent of this suit, from the foggy bottoms of my memory, was as a test case. I'm wondering if the "new owner" mentioned in the website above was not actually Sanford himself.
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