Milton+Howard+and+Dred+Scott

Original Author: Brandy Wheatley, ENG348 FL09 Revision: Danielle Graff, ENG 346 FL12
 * Milton Howard and Dred Scott **

It is unclear when Milton Howard was born or when exactly he passed because no birth certificate was ever found. All that is known for sure is that he was born free from slavery. At the age of five he was kidnapped along with his family including his father mother sister and brother. They were grabbed from their home in the middle of the night and taken south and later sold into slavery. Milton was sold to a man named Pickett from Alabama who made him one of his house servants. Milton stayed at the Pickett plantation for many years where he actually met his first wife. She too was a house slave to the Pickett’s. It wasn’t long after their marriage that the two were torn apart due to slave trade. Milton was sold to a man named Howard from Arkansas and this was where his last name derived from. It was said that Milton was very strong and determined, which is probably why he made such a bold escape from the Howard plantation in 1860’s. Research shows that at the time of the escape he was fortunate enough to use the Underground Railroad to aid in this escape but it is also said that at one point he was chased by bloodhounds and had to hide underwater for several hours only breathing through a hollow reed. After Howard’s escape he settled somewhere in Iowa. Soon after settling the Civil war began. Howard immediately enlisted to fight for the union to serve with the 60th U.S colored Infantry of Rock Island. After the war, Howard returned to Iowa where he married his second wife and bore 2 children. In 1866, Howard began working at the Rock Island Arsenal, ironically enough tearing down the Rock Island prison barracks. Through out Howard’s different walks of life he was able to pick up several different languages and became a very gifted linguist. Despite his hardships Howard became somewhat of a hero when he saved General Daniel W. Flager when the commandant fell through the ice near the arsenal. He was awarded for his brave actions in 1921. It was only one year earlier he was also rewarded the faithful service award from the Rock Island Arsenal colonel Harry B. Jordan. This award was only given to four other men and it was for 50 years of service at the arsenal. Milton Howard was very inspirational not only to his friends and the people he met in passing but also to his family. Howard’s grandson Howard Perkins followed in his footsteps by working on the arsenal himself and became the first Equal Employment Opportunity officer.
 * Milton Howard **

Dred Scott has his own interesting story, much like Milton Howard.It is unclear when Scott was born,however, most people estimate that he was born between 1799 and 1800. Unlike Milton, Scott was born into slavery in the state of Virginia and was owned by Peter Blow. He was uneducated and never learned to read or write. Peter Blow took Scott with him on his travels, first to Alabama and then to St. Louis, Missouri. Blow then sold Scott to an army doctor, John Emerson, who “took Scott with him from base to base, including Fort Armstrong in the free state of Illinois and Fort Snelling in the free territory of Wisconsin (now in Minnesota)” (Breyer 111).. During the three years that they stayed at Fort Snelling, Scott met and married Harriet Robinson, “a slave owned by a justice of the peace,” and had a daughter named Eliza(PBS, Breyer 112). Dr. Emerson brought the whole family back to St. Louis with him, but after his death, the ownership of Scott and his family was passed to Emerson’s wife, and “ultimately his wife’s brother, Sanford” (Breyer 112). “Scott’s extended stay in Illinois, a free state, gave him the legal standing to make a claim for freedom, as did his extended stay in Wisconsin, where slavery was also prohibited, but Scott never made the claim while living in the free lands—perhaps because he was unaware of his rights at the time, or perhaps because he was content with his master” (PBS). After Emerson’s death, Scott first “offered to buy his freedom from Mrs. Emerson—then living in St. Louis—for $300,” but the offer was turned down (PBS). Hedecided to bring a lawsuit, arguing “that his lengthy stay in free territory legally had made him a free man” (Breyer112).He “went to trial in June of 1847, but lost on a technicality” because he couldn’t give proof that he and his family were owned by Mrs. Emerson (PBS).A year later, the Mississippi Supreme Court wanted the case to be retried, and in 1850, the St. Louis circuit court “ruled that Scott and his family were free.” This win was short-lived when the Mississippi Supreme Court decided to reverse the decision two years later. Scott then took the case to the United States Circuit Court in Missouri, who still upheld the previous ruling. The last step for him was to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. Scott was represented by “a prominent attorney, later a member of President Lincoln’s cabinet,” and the brother of one of the Supreme Court Justices, Benjamin Curtis (Breyer113). Sanford was represented by “three prominent lawyers,” two of which were United States senators. The Supreme Court had two issues to decide: “whether it had jurisdiction to try the case and whether Scott was indeed a citizen” (PBS). This was because “Scott had claimed that he and the case’s defendant (Mrs. Emerson’s brother, John Sanford, who lived in New York) were citizens from different states.” The decision was a long process. The case was argued “over the course of four days in February 1856,” and “on May 12th, the Court asked for re-argument on the jurisdictional question” (Breyer 113). Chief Justice Taney gave his opinion on March 6th, 1857, Justice Benjamin Curtis gave his dissent the day after, and Taney rewrote and released his opinion in May. Even though Curtis and two other Justices disagreed, the majority ruled as follows:that “Scott cannot bring his case in federal court because freed slaves are not citizens of the United States,” that “many congressional anti-slavery-spreading statutes, including the Missouri Compromise, are unconstitutional,” and that “the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects the ownership rights of slave holders even when they take their slaves into free territories and into free states to live for extended periods of time.” The Supreme Court explained that “even if Dred Scott is a free man, he is not a ‘citizen.’” This was because “the Constitution allows the suit only if the case arises ‘between citizens of different states,’” which Taney stated“could not possibly have included freed slaves” because “’public opinion’ would not have allowed it.” Taney reasoned “that public opinion at that time considered Africans ‘so far inferior’ to the ‘white race’ that they had ‘no rights which the white man was bound to respect.’” Furthermore, “the Court, after having held that it had no jurisdiction to decide the merits of Dred Scott’s legal claim, then nonetheless went on to do just that.” In other words, the Court contradicted its own ruling. The Court “held that Dred Scott’s claims lacked legal merit: his three-year sojourn in the free Territory of Wisconsin and in the free state of Illinois did not emancipate him.”In his dissent, Justice Benjamin Curtis “strongly disagreed” with the ruling. He explains that “in his view, ‘every free person born on the soil of a state, who is a citizen of a state by force of its Constitution of laws, is also a citizen of the United States’ and consequently can sue a citizen of a different state in federal court.”Curtis also pointed out that “when a master took a slave into free territory, living there ‘for an indefinite period of time,’ taking ‘part,’ for example, in the territory’s ‘civil or military affairs,’ and certainly when the slave married and had children in that place, the slave became free.” After Chief Justice Taney released his opinion in May 1857, the South was immensely supportive. Even “President Buchanan (perhaps forewarned) favorably referred to the opinion in his March inaugural address and in his December State of the Union address.” But the reaction of Northerners was “vehemently negative.” Northerners were afraid that this result “paved the way for slavery’s spread to free states,” and “circulated the Curtis dissent widely in the form of a pamphlet.” If “’a master may take his slave into a free state without dissolving the relation of master and slave,’” then it was plausible for the next step to be the spread of slavery into those free states. Lincoln also used the decision to spark outrage and support for his political platform. He “based his Coopers’ Union speech—a speech that made him a national political figure—on Curtis’ dissent.” The outcome of Scott’s case played a huge role in the feelings of both sides of the slavery debate. At the very least, it “energized the antislavery North, became the Republican party’s rallying cry, it helped bring about Lincoln’s nomination and election as President,” and helped lead to the Civil War. It also tarnishedthe reputation of the United States Supreme Court. “The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court says that ‘American legal and constitutional scholars consider the Dred Scott decision to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court,’” and it certainly highlights the bigoted mindset of the South. The sons of Scott’s previous owner, Peter Blow, had become friends with Scott while he was under their father’s ownership, and actually helped him pay his legal fees throughout his fight for freedom. After the final decision of the Supreme Court, they purchased Scott and his wife and set them free (PBS). Hewas only ableto enjoy his freedom for nine months before he died on September 17th,1858. His gravestone read, “Dred Scott, born about 1799, died September 17th, 1858; Dred Scott, subject of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857 which denied citizenship to the Negro, voided the Missouri Compromise Act, became one of the events that resulted in the Civil War.”
 * Dred Scott **

Breyer, Stephen G. "A Look Back At The Dred Scott Decision." __Journal Of Supreme Court History__ 35.2 (2010): 110-121. Academic Search Premier. Web. "Dred Scott's Fight for Freedom."__Africans in America__.PBS, n.d. Web.. Klann, Fred. “Off the Beaten Path: Negro Here in 1834 Becomes Famous---Story of Historic supreme court Dred Scott Case” Moline Dispatch 10 Jun. 1964: 40 Lindburg, Beverly. “American Odyssey.” The Dispatch and Rock Island Argus 2 Mar. 2003: G4 <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Street, Connie. Black History Pioneer: Alexander Clark Became Prominent Achiever while Residing in Muscatine.” Muscatine Journal 24 Feb. 2006: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Wickstrom, George. “Story of America’s Most Famous Court Case, which Began On Island Here.” The Rock Island Argus Town Crier 17 Mar. 1951:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Works Cited **

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