Missouri House formally condemns Dred Scott decision

JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri House voted Wednesday to officially denounce the Missouri Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision.

In a resolution adopted on a 152-0 vote, the chamber followed the lead of a similar Senate action, formally condemning the high court’s 1852 decision denying Scott and his wife’s suits for freedom.

The Scotts sued for their family’s freedom in 1840, given that the family had been enslaved for several years in states that had abolished slavery before returning to Missouri.

A circuit court ruled in the Scotts’ favor, but the state’s Supreme Court overturned the decision, writing that slave states had no obligation to acknowledge the laws of free states.

Read more: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/missouri-house-formally-condemns-dred-scott-decision/article_85aa25d5-621c-5f16-8376-ccf6dd8694a2.html
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch)