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Difficulty: MediumIdeological and Legal Debates over Slavery

"And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction, or deny to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided for the protection of private property against the encroachments of the Government."

— Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857

Which of the following arguments regarding slavery in the territories is most directly supported by the constitutional reasoning expressed in the excerpt?

  1. A
    The residents of a territory possessed the constitutional right to vote on whether to permit or ban slavery.
  2. Congress lacked the constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in any United States territory.Answer
  3. C
    The primary source of sectional conflict in the territories was dispute over federal tariff policy rather than the status of labor.
  4. D
    Enslaved individuals brought into free territories were legally transformed into indentured servants with fixed terms of labor.

Answer

Congress lacked the constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in any United States territory.
The correct answer is correct because Chief Justice Taney's majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision argued that since the Constitution protects private property rights under the Fifth Amendment, and makes no distinction between slaves and other forms of property, Congress could not pass laws—such as the Missouri Compromise—that prohibited citizens from taking their slave property into federal territories.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the historical source and its context.
The excerpt is from the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
Identifying the document helps place the arguments within the context of Period 5 constitutional and ideological debates over slavery.
2
Identify the core legal argument presented in the text.
Taney argues that the Constitution protects the right to own slaves as private property, drawing no distinction between slaves and other property types, and forbids the federal government from denying these property rights.
This establishes the premise that the Fifth Amendment protects slaveholder property rights against government restriction in federal territories.
3
Evaluate the choices to determine which option aligns with this argument.
The option asserting that Congress lacked the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories directly reflects Taney's conclusion that federal bans on slavery (like the Missouri Compromise) were unconstitutional.
Matching the core argument of the text to the correct option yields the final answer.

Key Concept

The Dred Scott decision and the constitutional protection of slavery as property in federal territories.
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Topics

Ideological and Legal Debates over Slavery

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