The Supreme Court of the United States…
March 1857 CE
In the Dred Scott decision handed down two days after the inauguration of James Buchanan as U.S. President, the Court declares that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (which had forbidden slavery in that part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the latitude 36°30', except for Missouri) is unconstitutional because Congress has no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
Slaves are property, and masters are guaranteed their property rights under the Fifth Amendment.
Neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can deprive a citizen of his property without due process of law.
As for Scott's temporary residence in a free state, Illinois, the majority says that Scott had still been subject then to Missouri law.
The decision—only the second time in the nation's history that the Supreme Court declares an act of Congress unconstitutional—is a clear victory for the slaveholding South and an apparent mortal blow for the newly created Republican Party.
President Buchanan, the South, and the majority of the Supreme Court hope that the Dred Scott decision will mark the end of antislavery agitation.
Instead, the decision increases antislavery sentiment in the North and strengthens the Republican Party, adding fuel to the sectional controversy and pushing the nation along the road to civil war.
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