Dred Scott v. Sandford: Dred Scott v. Sandford, List 1

On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Case. Scott, a slave, had been brought from a slave territory to a free territory and demanded his freedom. The Court ruled that as an enslaved person, Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in the courts. The decision further polarized the North and the South and ended any chance of compromise. This pro-slavery Supreme Court decision illuminates how the issue of slavery brought the nation to the brink of the Civil War. Read the full text here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. plaintiff
    a person who brings an action in a court of law
    The plaintiff in error, who was also the plaintiff in the court below, was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant in the State of Missouri, and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for that district to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.
  2. declaration
    a formal public statement
    The declaration is in the form usually adopted in that State to try questions of this description, and contains the averment necessary to give the court jurisdiction; that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.
  3. abatement
    the act of making less active or intense
    The defendant pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court, that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood and who were brought into this country and sold as slaves.
  4. demur
    enter a formal objection to an opponent's pleadings
    To this plea the plaintiff demurred, and the defendant joined in demurrer.
  5. sundry
    consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds
    And he thereupon put in sundry pleas in bar, upon which issues were joined, and at the trial the verdict and judgment were in his favor.
  6. advert
    give heed (to)
    But, in making this objection, we think the peculiar and limited jurisdiction of courts of the United States has not been adverted to.
  7. inferior
    one of lesser rank or station or quality
    But the record, when it comes before the appellate court, must show affirmatively that the inferior court had authority under the Constitution to hear and determine the case.
  8. provision
    a stipulated condition
    And if the plaintiff claims a right to sue in a Circuit Court of the United States under that provision of the Constitution which gives jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, he must distinctly aver in his pleading that they are citizens of different States, and he cannot maintain his suit without showing that fact in the pleadings.
  9. aver
    declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true
    And if the plaintiff claims a right to sue in a Circuit Court of the United States under that provision of the Constitution which gives jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, he must distinctly aver in his pleading that they are citizens of different States, and he cannot maintain his suit without showing that fact in the pleadings.
  10. descendant
    a person considered as coming from some ancestor or race
    The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State in the sense in which the word "citizen" is used in the Constitution of the United States.
  11. import
    bring in from abroad
    The question is simply this: can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution?
  12. cede
    relinquish possession or control over
    But that claim was acknowledged to be subject to the right of the Indians to occupy it as long as they thought proper, and neither the English nor colonial Governments claimed or exercised any dominion over the tribe or nation by whom it was occupied, nor claimed the right to the possession of the territory, until the tribe or nation consented to cede it.
  13. comity
    a state or atmosphere of harmony or mutual civility
    But this character, of course, was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States.
  14. bound
    bound or forced to work by contract
    They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
  15. article
    one of a class of artifacts
    He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it.
Created on Tue May 27 11:37:40 EDT 2025

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