Apellate case file no. 3230, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 (19 Howard 393), decided March 6, 1857 and related records

This collection houses the records of the papers filed in the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. This case ruled that Congress could not legislate that territories would be free and that blacks in the United States were not citizens and therefore were not entitled to the protection of the law. The Dred Scott decision further divided the nation in the years before the Civil War, and had lasting implications for the legal status of African Americans in the U.S.