Dred Scott case in reverse

This is near ASB as Scott had gotten only 2 votes but what if the Supreme Court decided that when you take an owner takes his slave to a free state he becomes free or that you have only a short transit time, say 30 days, to get out of the state before he becomes free.
 
Very probably. There is also the possiblity that a decision that they had thirty days of transit time might have been enough to not accelerate it too much. Southerners would simply have to stay down South with their slaves.
 
No it would enrage the South. Historiclly speaking slaveowners didn't travel with their slaves for that long anyways, but regardless.

The effect would be on slave hunters inability to return slaves that have escaped north because they've been in a free state more than thirty days. This would certainly come up before the Supreme Court and probably give the South another causus belli.
 
You have a point. I hadn't thought about escaped slaves. In any case I said it was very probable that it would have accelerated the process.
 
It would also change the whole notion of the concept of "property." Think that's why slave states were able to spread across the Union despite the compromise in the Northwest Ordinance that no new states entering the Union should be slave states. Slaves were technically property and the government couldn't take away property without due cause... and a search warrant.

Reversing the Dred Scott decision would equal to an earlier Civil War, but it would also change the nature of the war entirely. Certain states that may otherwise have seceded may see that perhaps slavery is simply coming to an end, as was the southern mindset at the time. It may also lead to a more socialistic USA after the war, the whole notion of property being different and all.
 
I do not think that a different Dred Scott decision would have changed the legal status of escaped slaves. It would merely mean that slave owners could not have slaves in states where the white men had chosen a goverment which rejected their evil institution.

As for property rights as I understand it in certain states - Maine I believe- there was prohibition of alcohol. If you took that substance into a part of the USA you could lose that property. This situation also carried on after National Prohibition.

The other thing about Dredd Scott is that it hugely encouraged the Republican party. Most Repbulicans dislikes slavery but did not feel that they had a legal way of interfering with it in the South. The logic of Dred Scott is that a slave owner could move North and force the people of, say, Vermont to tolerate their intolerable peculiar institution in a state that hated it.

I do not think that the South would seceed on this issue. I doubt many slave owner in practice wanted to take their 'property' North.

I think it is less likely that Republicans would win in 1860.
 
It wouldn't be the only possible instance where property could be confiscated between one state or another, right? How has the court ruled on things like prohibition and gun control? States seem to have the ability to confiscate property purchased legally in other states.
 
Another possibility...

OK--suppose that Dred Scott goes forwards as historical. You can't loose your property just by crossing the line. But...one or more states passes another law, worded like the prohibition statutes. They specifically allow transportation of slaves through the state, provided the owner is simply transiting it. But staying there past a certain time and use is not allowed.

This is sufficiently different to go before a court again, perhaps all the way to the supreme court. The prohibition of alcohol could be used as a precedent, and a new court case comes forth. It might not be ASB for the court to rule in favor of state's rights, since the property owner's rights are given some protection. The state might even require registration of property under transit, so as to know when the limit is reached.

As for escaped slaves---well, it could be argued that they were not freed, since the owner didn't transport them there himself. (And if a slave escapes while already in a free state, I suspect that the slave might in fact be free...)

That sort of law could lead to an interesting series of compromises...or tension..either hastening or delaying the Civil War.
 
The country was too polarized by 1857 for the Court to rule for slaveowners in one decision and against them in the next. The political dynamics of recent years had left the Supreme Court thoroughly dominated by Southern sympathizers and supporters of Buchanan. Indeed, Republicans at the time were convinced that Buchanan and the Court had formed a conspiracy to extend slavery tothe entire USA. The POD would have to be earlier, to create a more Northern-friendly Court. Since there were not too many high profile slavery cases before Dred Scott, this could probably be pulled off without ASB and without too many butterflies.
 
Without a divergence long before the decision, this is ASB. You're going to have to replace several members of the court with people who held radically different views, which probably means Andrew Jackson doesn't become President in TTL. And that leads to such a different timeline the Dred Scott may never occur.

It is true that southerners would be unhappy with this decision, but it's only a mild victory for the Free Soilers. In contrast, OTL's decision was some of the most blatant judicial activism in US history. "It strengthened the opposition to slavery in the North, divided the Democratic Party on sectional lines, encouraged secessionist elements among Southern supporters of slavery to make even bolder demands, and strengthened the Republican Party."

So this decision, while increasing tensions between different groups from what they were before the decision, does so far less than in OTL.
 
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