Inspired by Dred Scott

Dred Scott (1795 – September 17, 1858), was a slave in the United States who sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as "the Dred Scott Decision." The United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim to be a citizen in the United States, thus Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. While Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and Congressional authority by this decision, it aroused public outrage and deepened sectional tensions between the northern and southern U.S. states. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil War Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments nullified the decision.