Dred Scott Argumentative Essay

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All men are created equal Black people’s path to equality came a long way from exclusion of laws treating them as property or less to treating them as humans with the same rights as a white man. America had to go through a war just to get a step further and then we got a little bit of hell with the Emancipation proclamation passed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862. But even after that, African Americans were still not considered equal. The thirteenth amendment freed the slaves but did not make them citizens. Black people were not inclusive until the fourteenth amendment which gave then equal rights but this didn’t come very easy it took a couple of years before progress was made. To begin with, In 1857 the story of the Dred Scott decision took place, the supreme court declared that all blacks were not allowed to become citizens of the united states Dred Scott was a slave whose previous owner, had spent time in Illinois, and Wisconsin which were both free states, but by the law of the constitution he was not free. Before moving back to Missouri he appealed to the court hoping to gain freedom, being that he was not considered a person but perceived as property by law the Supreme Court could not take property away from the owner. Rodger B. Taney who was 5th…show more content…
Some states did not apply such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland or Delaware because they were not a part of the confederacy but were still slave states that had not declared which side they were on. Although they were free African Americans remained poor, and the confederate states passed laws that prevented blacks from voting or gaining equal status disregarding constitutional amendments guaranteeing these rights. The proclamation was a great step towards freedom and equality but it did not mean blacks and whites were now on the same

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