WI Dredd Scott freed and no Harpers Ferry

Had the Supreme court freed Scott and John Brown was either talked out of his gesture or died in Kansas would the Civil War have been postponed or prevented?
 

Cryostorm

Monthly Donor
Maybe not prevented but the South may be less prepared for the war. Harper's Ferry put the South's siege mentality into overdrive and led them to professionalize the state militia's to a much greater extent and build up supplies in case of a successful slave uprising.
 
Dredd Scott

Dredd Scott going the other way would have put a hard limit on slavery, completely prohibiting it from moving north. I suspect that that victory for the abolitionists would have had some interesting repercussions. For one thing, it might have looked like enough progress that John Brown's backers might have been less willing to back him.

But John Brown was, IMVHO, a fanatic, and would be very hard to talk out of anything... (To me, he was the right nutcase at the right time...)
 
Dredd Scott going the other way would have put a hard limit on slavery, completely prohibiting it from moving north. I suspect that that victory for the abolitionists would have had some interesting repercussions. For one thing, it might have looked like enough progress that John Brown's backers might have been less willing to back him.

But John Brown was, IMVHO, a fanatic, and would be very hard to talk out of anything... (To me, he was the right nutcase at the right time...)

I would argue John brown is the only sane man in America at that moment. Slavery was monstrous and should have been overthrown by any and all means possible.
 

Vahktang

Donor
I would argue John brown is the only sane man in America at that moment. Slavery was monstrous and should have been overthrown by any and all means possible.
Nah, he was a crazy guy.
He planned and had ready pole arms to arm the slaves that were to rise up.
 
Had the Supreme court freed Scott and John Brown was either talked out of his gesture or died in Kansas would the Civil War have been postponed or prevented?

That would be difficult, considering the solid majority of the Court in favor of the decision. A more likely result (though not one favorable to Scott personally) would be for the Supreme Court to dismiss the case on the basis of standing, or to narrowly affirm the lower court's holding without a broader decision. For Dred Scott to end up free, you'd probably have to have the Court make an extremely narrow ruling that somehow avoided making significant decisions on all the other major questions of the case.

That might be barely possible if the Court decides the case strictly on the basis of Scott's residence in Illinois. As a state, Illinois could without question regulate or prohibit slavery within its borders. By taking Scott into Illinois and residing there, Sanford could (maybe) be interpreted as abandoning his property rights in Scott due to the illegality of slavery there. The issue of slavery in the territories then wouldn't need to be relevant to the case, as residence there happened after residing in Illinois. The Court would probably be at pains to differentiate residence and travel or sojourn to avoid implying that a slave on a boat that briefly docks on the north bank of the Ohio river would be free.

The problem with this is that a decision holding that Dred Scott was free because of his residence in a free state would very quickly result in new cases applying the same logic to residence in territories where slavery was outlawed, and it'd be almost impossible for the Supreme Court to finesse the issue indefinitely. At some point it's going to issue a highly controversial decision that'll divide the country. Unfortunately, given the Court's composition and the fact that the abolition of slavery was still a minority opinion, odds are good that any decision that frees Dred Scott is just kicking the can down the road.
 
I would argue John brown is the only sane man in America at that moment. Slavery was monstrous and should have been overthrown by any and all means possible.

And getting a few hundred slaves mown down in an abortive revolt would have promoted that aim?
 
And getting a few hundred slaves mown down in an abortive revolt would have promoted that aim?

God help me for sounding so trite, but better to die a free man than live a slave.

Besides that, revolts, successful or otherwise, keep slavery and abolitionism in the public eye and pressures society to address it.
 
God help me for sounding so trite, but better to die a free man than live a slave.

The relative paucity of slave revolts in the Old South might suggest that most of the slaves didn't see it that way.

Besides that, revolts, successful or otherwise, keep slavery and abolitionism in the public eye and pressures society to address it.

So they should be willing to die just to provide some (mostly white) abolitionists with the oxygen of publicity?

Incidentally, if they chose to rebel, did they particularly need a John Brown to prompt them? Afaik, Nat Turner managed to launch one without waiting for any northerner to start it for him.
 
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