Dred Scott decision rules in favor of Scott

Just like it says on the tin. In this timeline, there is more of a mixture of Northern and Southern justices on the Supreme Court and they rule Scott can stay free.

What happens?
 
Hard to see how that happens without different Supreme Court justices, which in turn is hard to see how it happens without different Presidents and different politics.

I think the best you can do is get Buchanan and/or Taney to realize that they will cause massive controversy if they try to resolve the slavery in the territories issue this way, so Taney punts on the issue by saying (somewhat dishonestly) that there is a lack of federal jurisdiction.
 

Hoist40

Banned
Since Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution said the following
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due
It would mean either changing the Constitution or the Supreme Court ignoring a part of the Constitution.
 
Since Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution said the following

It would mean either changing the Constitution or the Supreme Court ignoring a part of the Constitution.
Except he wasn't escaping. His master voluntarily took him to federal territories and the free state of Illinois. It'd long been established that if a slaveholder took the slave to free territory and remained there for some time, the slave became free. (Exactly how much time was a separate issue; they also had a "right of transit" which had stretched in some places to several months, but Scott was there for about four years.) Unfortunately, it'd also been established that the home state's courts controlled - and in this case, Missouri violated all law and precedent to rule against Scott.
 
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