University of nebraska lincoln Professor William thomas, teaches a class on some of the lawsuits brought by slaves who sued for their freedom during the antibell lum period. He outlines the different legal arguments they used and emphasized how most suits affected not just one person but entire families. Okay, good morning, everybody. Lets get started. So today, our subject is freedom suits. Suits brought by enslaved families, and how they posed a challenge to the constitution, and under the constitution, how they posed a challenge to american slavery. Now, most of us are familiar with dread scott, d. John sandford and you all read chief Justice Roger tawnys opinion in dred scotts case. And you have read that opinion, and its notorious in American History, right . For the blatant racism in it, for the sanction that tawny gives to the concept of human property under the constitution, and for denying black citizenship, not only denying black citizenship, but denying even blacks as free,
With dred scott, d. John sandford and you all read chief Justice Roger tawnys opinion in dred scotts case. And you have read that opinion, and its notorious in American History, right . For the blatant racism in it, for the sanction that tawny gives to the concept of human property under the constitution, and for denying black citizenship, not only denying black citizenship, but denying even blacks as free, as persons under the constitution. And so, dred scott was one type of freedom suit, right . It was based on his physical presence in a free state, illinois, and his physical presence in wisconsin, a free territory. And its often presented in American History textbooks as if it were the only freedom suit in American History. To go to the Supreme Court. The only, almost uniformly, presented as dred scott, one man bringing a freedom suit. But when we look into it a little more closely, there were thousands of freedom suits in american courts. All of them challenging the notion of slave
With dread scott, d. John sandford and you all read chief Justice Roger tawnys opinion in dred scotts case. And you have read that opinion, and its notorious in American History, right . For the blatant racism in it, for the sanction that tawny gives to the concept of human property under the constitution, and for denying black citizenship, not only denying black citizenship, but denying even blacks as free, as persons under the constitution. And so, dred scott was one type of freedom suit, right . It was based on his physical presence in a free state, illinois, and his physical presence in wisconsin, a free territory. And its often presented in American History textbooks as if it were the only freedom suit in American History. To go to the Supreme Court. The only, almost uniformly, presented as dred scott, one man bringing a freedom suit. But when we look into it a little more closely, there were thousands of freedom suits in american courts. All of them challenging the notion of slav
Sandford and you all read chief Justice Roger tawnys opinion in dred scotts case. And you have read that opinion, and its notorious in American History, right . For the blatant racism in it, for the sanction that tawny gives to the concept of human property under the constitution, and for denying black citizenship, not only denying black citizenship, but denying even blacks as free, as persons under the constitution. And so, dred scott was one type of freedom suit, right . It was based on his physical presence in a free state, illinois, and his physical presence in wisconsin, a free territory. And its often presented in American History textbooks as if it were the only freedom suit in American History. To go to the Supreme Court. The only, almost uniformly, presentedup are, presented as dred scott, one man bringing a freedom suit. But when we look into it a little more closely, there were thousands of freedom suits in american courts. All of them challenging the notion of slavery under