Cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org. Now we will take to you st. Louis, missouri where we take a look at courthouse where the dred scott case first started. A lot of times i asked myself why is it important to preserve a historic structure in a lot of times you can read about the history. You get a moment where you think, wow, thats amazing that this event happened right where im standing. And to me thats what value of a historic structure is. You can get that connection between people just Walking Around today and maybe thinking of their own thoughts and lives and suddenly they can jump back into the past and have a connection with the people of the past. We are in a courthouse that is no longer used for courts today. Hasnt been since 1930. But it a very Historic Building thats been preserved, tried to tell a little bit about st. Louiss history. This courthouse is probably best known as the courthouse where dred and Harriet Scott, two enslaved people, here in st. Louis, sued for their freedom. That freedom suit which they launched in 1846 went all the way to the u. S. Supreme court, which in 1857 decided that dred and Harriet Scott would be held as slaves, continue to be slaves. It was also a decision that was very broad. It said people couldnt be restricted from taking their slaves into federal territory. So it opened up all the western territories to areas of slavery. It was one of the deciding factors on leading the nation to a path of civil war. There were a lot of other things. John browns raid on harpers ferry. A lot of things that were going on in the late 1850s. But any one of those you could probably say, well, its one of the places where the civil war really began, where the roots of the civil war are. So long before the first gun was fired at fort sumter in south carolina, a lot of things were leading the country on on the road toward civil war. One was the case that was originally heard in this building, the case of dread and Harriet Scott. A lot of time the story of the dread scott case because it is is a factor of civil war, the people themselves get lost in the story. Dtn he was from st. Louis but had lived many other places. He was born in the late 1790s, early 1800 in virginia. And he was born as a slave on a plantation owned by a family named blow. The blow family moved to alabama. And they took dread scott with them and tried to make a go of it there on another plantation which failed. So they moved to st. Louis and actually bought a hotel and decided to try to do a different type of work to try to make their living. They found that they needed some ready cash and so they sold dread scott after they arrived here in st. Louis in the 1830s. Dred was purchased by a man named emmerson. A physician who was working with the u. S. Army, dr. Emerson. Dr. Emerson was posted at many different places. But two of them are the things that actually resulted in suit of the scotts later on. One was fort armstrong, which is in the state of illinois, which was not supposed to have slavery because of the northwest ordinance. And another one what was then the territory of wisconsin, today minnesota, forth snelling. So dread scott was taken to those place as a slave, held in slavery there, even though slavery was technical illegal in those place, and then brought back to st. Louis. While he was at Fort Snelling he met a woman named harriet robinson, who was enslaved to another person, another officer at the fort. And dr. Emerson actually purchased her and allowed the scotts to marry legally. It was unusual for slaves to have a legal marriage performed by a clergyman. So dred and Harriet Scott returned to st. Louis. They had two children, both daughters. And after a time, dr. Emerson passed away. Mrs. Emerson was asked by the scotts whether they might be able to purchase their freedom from her. It was something, especially in urban slavery, it wasnt that unusual. But she refused. She was not interested in selling the scott family. So they decided, based on the fact that they had been taken to free territory and held as slaves and were still being held in bondage when they returned to st. Louis, to sue for their freedom. So they entered this courthouse in 1846. Each had their own petition. So it wasnt as though it was a joint thing. And it wasnt just dred. It was dred and harriet, who had separate petitions for their freedom based on slightly different circumstances. The case first came to the trial here in this building in 1847. There was some hearsay evidence introduced. So it was a mistrial. They actually lost the first trial. And they asked for another trial, which the judge granted. In 1850, they came back and did the whole thing again. They were able to present the evidence successfully. And the jury of all white males, 12 white males, probably some of them slave owners, decided that dred and Harriet Scott should be free. So the verdict that was rendered in this building was actually to give them their freedom. But mrs. Emerson obviously didnt agree, and she appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, which had become very politicized by 1852 when they rendered their verdict. And the slavery issue was heating up all over the nation. So the justices that were on the state Supreme Court, there were three of them. Two of them were slave owners. And they believed that the trend of the jurisprudence in missouri had been to free slaves and taken to free territory. They thought that was wrong. They felt slaves were property. And to take a persons property away just because a person had taken it to a certain area of the country was not a fair thing to do under the law. So they changed from the bench. They legislated, changing all the legal system had been saying up to that point in time in missouri. And they basically were saying that the scotts would be returned to slavery. So a new attorney named roswell field came along and talked to the scotts about a different strategy. He felt that they could take their case to the Federal District court here in st. Louis because mrs. Emerson had remarried a man named calvin chafy back in massachusetts and had transferred ownership from the scotts from herself to her brother john sanford he was a resident of new york state. So the scotts were being held in bondage by a man who lived in another state, a free state to boot. So field thought that the strategy would be the scotts could sue sanford and take that to their residence. They lost in the federal court. But they appealed that case directly to the u. S. Supreme court. And that was the case that was heard by the Supreme Court in 1856, and again in 1857 when they actually rendered their decision. It is is interesting that sanford, his name is on the case. And he doesnt come into it until 1854 when they go to the federal court. And sanford is a key player in that we know the scotts were returned to slavery by the Supreme Court. Yet they were set free in this room just a couple of months later. And the way that happened was that sanford died in new york state. And upon his death the ownership of the scotts reverted to his sister. And technically to her husband, dr. Chafy who was from massachusetts. He was an abolitionist and a sitting member of congress at this time. So suddenly he finds that hes the owner of the most famous slaves in the United States just literally overnight. And he wanted to divest himself of the slaves as quickly as he could before the press found out basically. What he did is he sold the scott family for a token dollar to one of the sons of the original family from the plantation where scott was born back in virginia. And taylor blow brought them into this courtroom and set them free in 1857. So the scotts achieved the freedom that they had fought so long to obtain while still provoking this incredibly important Supreme Court decision, which led the country on the road to civil war, which of course eventually freed all the slaves. Dred, unfortunately, did not live very long after the decision was rendered. He died probably of tuberculosis in 1858, so only a year after the case was decided. His wife lived on until 1876. So she would have seen the civil war and she would have seen freedom come along. For a good share of their lives, the scotts lived here in st. Louis. They died here. Theyre buried here. So in many respects we can say that the scott family were st. 9mat the scott family were st. Here and in many ways ended here. And in many ways with the court case in washington and set free. We will hear from professors and historians on the Supreme Court case that upheld a monopoly of slaughter houses in new orleans to protect Public Health and sanitation. The slaughter house cases were the first cases in which the court commented on the meaning of the 14th amendment. That starts at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Like us on facebook at cspan history. I never heard of him. I wanted to know how this man who had been told from the time he was a young child that he was not worth anything could have had the courage and determination to find a way out of slavery and i was just intrigued and i couldnt stop reading about him. Journalist and author cate lineberry writes about robert smalls. In her book be free or die. There was a bribery charge fwe against him and one point in his career and he never fully recovered from that. In my opinion, thats one of the reasons he is not better known today. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Now back to our focus on the Supreme Courts 1857 decision in dred scott versus sanford. Welcome to our third week in this course and my what ground have we covered this far. We have more ground to cover this day because we are coming up to the 1850s now. Talking about the crises of the 1850s. That really began with the compromise of 1850. That move into the kansas nebraska act of 1854