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Beyond denying Scott his freedom, what else did the Court hold in 1857?
AThat a slave could sue in any federal court
BThat the states alone could regulate the slave trade
CThat Congress could not bar slavery from a territory
DThat living on free soil ended a master's claim
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: C. That Congress could not bar slavery from a territory
1. Scott was a Missouri slave who had been taken to live in Illinois and Wisconsin.
2. Slavery was forbidden in those places, and on returning he sued for liberation on that ground.
3. The Court held that by voluntarily returning to a slave state he had lost the right to be free.
4. It went further and ruled that any attempt by Congress to prohibit slavery in a territory was invalid.
5. That second holding is what stirred fierce excitement throughout the north.
6. For southern Democrats it gave judicial sanction to slavery in the territories.
7. Ending a master's claim by residence on free soil is the argument the Court rejected.
8. Nothing in the ruling handed regulation of the slave trade to the states alone.
_Source: An Outline of American History (U.S. Information Agency, 1990, public domain), section THE SPLIT GROWS DEEPER_
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