6.4Dred Scott and a hardening divide

In 1857 the Supreme Court tried to settle the slavery question by force of law and instead inflamed it. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that Black Americans were not citizens and could not sue, and that Congress had no power to ban slavery in any territory.

The decision thrilled the South and horrified the North, seeming to make slavery a national institution beyond democratic control. It also energized the Republicans, whose entire platform the Court had just declared unconstitutional. In 1858, a little-known Illinois Republican named Abraham Lincoln argued in famous debates that the nation could not endure "half slave and half free."