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A history lesson at a young lawyers’ conference
I am writing this piece as I wait for my flight back home from St. Louis, where I was given the wonderful opportunity to once again represent the Bar Association of Baltimore City Young Lawyers Division at the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Spring Conference.
The conference was held at the Four Seasons, where I had a handwritten note from the housekeeping staff and chocolate on my pillow every night and the bathroom mirror had a camouflaged, flat-screen television inside it. However, just a few block away from our hotel was the old St. Louis courthouse, where the dreadful Dred Scott v. Sanford case had its roots. Although I studied this case in depth as a political science student, I had forgotten I was in the very town where such an unfortunate part of our history took place. So, as I watched President Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Howard University in/on the mirror T.V., I decided I needed to find out more about the background of this case.
On April 6, 1846, Dred and his wife Harriet Scott filed suit against their “owner,” Irene Emerson, for their freedom. According to literature I found at the St. Louis courthouse, (which is now a museum) freedom suits were not unusual in St. Louis, with more than 200 slaves petitioning for their freedom in the city court between 1804 and 1865, most on the same basis as Dred Scott — previous residence in a free territory.
At the time, Missouri courts supported the doctrine of “once free, always free,” which is what a jury found in 1850 in giving the Scotts their freedom. Unfortunately, Irene Emerson appealed her case to the Missouri Supreme Court, which reversed the ruling in 1852 for political reasons because slavery was becoming a divisive issue nationwide. We all know how the federal courts handled Dred Scott’s lawsuit against John Sanford, Mrs. Emerson’s brother and executor of the Emerson estate.
While the March 6, 1857, Supreme Court decision delivered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had dire consequences for slaves throughout the country, I was surprised to learn the Scotts experienced a somewhat-positive turn of events. Ironically, by the time the decision was rendered, Irene Emerson was remarried to Calvin C. Chaffee, a northern congressman who opposed slavery. Chaffee turned Dred and Harriet Scott, along with their two daughters, over to the Peter Blow family, their old friends and original “owner” of Dred Scott. The Blow family gave the Scott family its freedom in May of 1857, two months after the Supreme Court decision.
Dred Scott died of tuberculosis about a year-and-a-half after he gained his freedom but lived to see the celebration in northern cities due to his emancipation. His legacy led to the Civil War and, eventually, the end of slavery throughout the Unites States.
As for the for the Young Lawyers Division conference, I learned a number of things that could be helpful to young lawyers. I’ll dive into them in my next post.
