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By common consensus, Dred Scott v. Sanford is the most infamous decision in Supreme Court history. Ironically, it also may be the most

significant decision in Supreme Court history. Why? Because it almost destroyed the union. Here's what

happened. In 1846, Dred Scott, a slave, sued for his freedom.

Scott had been born into slavery in Virginia, but during the 1830s, he traveled with his owner,

John Emerson, an Army doctor, to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, both of which had

banned slavery. When Emerson died in 1843, his widow, Irene Sanford, inherited Scott.

In 1846, Scott sought to buy his freedom from Sanford, offering her $300. She refused.

Scott then turned to the legal system filing a lawsuit against her in a St. Louis Missouri court.

He had a strong case. It was not uncommon for slaves to claim that once they entered a free state, they were free.

And Missouri courts were sympathetic to these claims.

Over the next eight years, however, Scott endured a legal roller coaster, first losing his case,

then winning, then losing again.

His appeal reached the Supreme Court in February 1856.

Chief Justice Roger Tani immediately grasped its importance.

Here was a case, Tani reasoned, that could settle once and for all the vexing issue of slavery

and its role in America's future. To understand Tani's thinking, we need a bit of historical

context. As the nation expanded in the early and mid-19th century and admitted new states,

the slavery issue became more and more contentious. In 1820 and then

again in 1850, Congress passed two bills to diffuse the growing conflict, respectively known as the

Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. Both laws divided the country into free states and slave states.

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