Origins of the Dred Scott case : Jacksonian jurisprudence and the Supreme Court, 1837-1857 / Austin Allen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Austin, 1970-

Series:

Studies in the legal history of the South

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Scott, Dred, 1809-1858.

United States. Supreme Court.

Constitutional history--United States--Sources.

Constitutional history.

Slavery--Law and legislation.

History.

United States.

United States. Supreme Court--History--Sources.

Slavery--Law and legislation--United States--History--Sources.

Slavery.

Scott, Dred, 1809-1858--Trials, litigation, etc.

Scott, Dred.

Sanford, John F. A., 1806 or 1807-1857--Trials, litigation, etc.

Sanford, John F. A.

Sanford, John F. A., 1806 or 1807-1857.

Genre:

Sources.

Physical Description:

x, 274 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, [2006]

Summary:

The Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision denied citizenship to African Americans and enabled slavery's westward expansion. It has long stood as a grievous instance of justice perverted by sectional politics. Austin Allen finds that the outcome of Dred Scott hinged not on a single issue-slavery-but on a web of assumptions, agendas, and commitments held collectively and individually by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and his colleagues.

By showing us the political, professional, ideological, and institutional contexts in which the Taney Court worked, Allen reveals that Dred Scott was not simply a victory for the court's prosouthern faction. It was instead an outgrowth of Jacksonian jurisprudence, an intellectual system that charged the court with protecting slavery, preserving both federal power and state sovereignty, promoting economic development, and securing the legal foundations of an emerging corporate order-all at the same time.

Contents:

Realizing popular sovereignty : partisan sentiment and constitutional constraint in Jacksonian jurisprudence

Imposing self-rule : professionalism, commerce, social order, and the sources of Taney court jurisprudence

Evidence of law : popular sovereignty and judicial authority in Swift v. Tyson

Moderating Taney : concurrent sovereignty and answering the slavery question, 1842-1852

The limits of judicial partisanship : corporate law and the emergence of southern factionalism

The sources of southern factionalism : corporations, free blacks, and the imperatives of federal citizenship

The failure of evasion : Dred Scott v. Emerson, Strader v. Graham, Swift v. Tyson, and Dred Scott v. Sandford

The political economy of blackness : citizenship, corporations, and the judicial uses of racism in Dred Scott

Looking westward : concurrent sovereignty and the answer to the territorial question.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-266) and index.

ISBN:

0820326534

0820328421

OCLC:

61362101

Publisher Number:

9780820326535

9780820328423