A Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John H. Sanford. December Term, 1856.

HOWARD, Benjamin C. [Dred Scott].

$7,500.00

Item Number: 145459

New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1857.

Rare first edition of the report of the Dred Scott decision which held that the U.S. Constitution was not intended to include citizenship for African Americans, published simultaneously in Washington D.C. and New York. Octavo, original wrappers with a decorative woodcut border. From the library of Judge Roland Hitchcock and signed by him from Winsted, Connecticut, not far from Hartford where the book was originally sold, and dated in June 1857, just months after the verdict was issued and the ramifications of the Dred Scott case began to affect other cases around the country. In very good condition with the front wrapper expertly repaired, a small area of dampstaining and early Hartford bookseller stamp to the front wrapper. Housed in a custom clamshell case.

The Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott case", was a landmark decision made by the United States Supreme Court in which it ruled that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for African Americans, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them. The decision was made in the case of Dred Scott, an enslaved black man whose owners had taken him from Missouri, which was a slave-holding state, into the Missouri Territory, most of which had been designated "free" territory by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. When his owners later brought him back to Missouri, Scott sued in court for his freedom. In an opinion written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the Court ruled that individuals of African descent "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States." The decision has been widely denounced ever since. Historian David Thomas Konig referred to it as "unquestionably, our court's worst decision ever."