A Dividing Nation

Popular Sovereignty

• Popular Sovereignty - The principle that government gets its authority from the people, therefore people have a right to change or abolish their government.
• States make their own decisions, not the federal government
• People vote on what they want.

What Is the �Supreme Court?

• The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States.
• Its job is to explain what the Constitution means.
• The Court decides important legal questions when people disagree about laws, rights, or government power.
• The Supreme Court decisions affect the entire country, not just the people in one case.
• Case law means law created by court decisions.
• When judges decide a case, their decision can become an example for future cases.

Judicial Review

• Judicial Review is the power of the Supreme Court to decide whether a law follows the Constitution.
• If the Court believes a law violates the Constitution, it can strike the law down.
• This gives the Supreme Court major influence over American government and society.
• The decisions of the Supreme Court can change what states, and the federal government are allowed to do.

Brown v. Board of Education, 1954

• The Case
• In many states, Black and white students were forced to attend separate public schools.
• The government claimed this was legal under the idea of “separate but equal.”
• The Supreme Court’s Ruling
• The Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
• The Court said separate schools were not equal because segregation harmed Black students and denied them equal protection
• Impact on Americans
• Public schools could no longer legally separate students by race.

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Riley v. California, 2014

• The Case
• Police arrested David Riley and searched his cell phone without a warrant.
• They found information on the phone and used it as evidence.
• Riley argued that searching his phone without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
• The Supreme Court’s Ruling
• The Supreme Court ruled that police usually need a warrant before searching the digital information on a person’s cell phone.
• Impact on Americans
• This decision gave Americans stronger privacy protections in the digital age.
• Police cannot automatically search a person’s phone just because that person has been arrested.

Avoiding Slavery Laws

• The US government often avoided making a national ruling on slavery.
• Instead, each state decided whether slavery would be legal or illegal
• Some states outlawed slavery and became known as free states.
• Other states protected slavery and became known as slave states.
• This created a divided country where a person’s freedom could depend on where they lived.
• The Federal Government Tried to Compromise
• Congress passed compromises to keep balance between free and slave states.
• Examples included the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850.
• These laws tried to manage where slavery could expand, but they did not end the conflict.

Dred Scott

• Dred Scott was a slave who was suing his master for freedom.
• Scott and his master traveled outside the south into the free state of Illinois. They later moved back to the slave state of Missouri
• These free states had rules that any enslaved person brought into the state became free.
• With the help of an abolitionist group Scott sued for freedom (1847), claiming that because he had lived in a free state, he should be free

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Dred Scott

• The case went to the Supreme Court where in 1857, the Court ruled against Scott
• The Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott had no rights whatsoever.
• He was property, not a person or a citizen.
• He had no right to sue in federal court.
• Further, the court ruled that the federal government had no legal right to interfere with the institution of slavery.
• Southerners saw the Dred Scott decision as a victory.
• Northerners feared that slavery could now not be banned in any territory.

What did the Dred Scott decision say about the Missouri Compromise?

• The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

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• Meaning Congress could not ban slavery in any U.S. territory.

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Impact on the Nation

• The Supreme Court - Ruled that Dred Scott was not a citizen and therefore could not sue in federal court.
• Declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, meaning Congress could not ban slavery in any U.S. territory.

Pro-Slavery Victory:

• Southern slaveholders celebrated the ruling as a legal protection for expanding slavery.
• It gave them a green light to spread slavery into new western territories.

Northern Outrage:

• Northerners were shocked and angered—the decision made slavery legal even in places they had believed were free.

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Results

• The Dred Scott Decision outraged abolitionists
• By denying African Americans citizenship rights, the decision reinforced the dehumanization of enslaved people and emboldened pro-slavery sentiments.
• Abolitionists saw the Supreme Court's ruling as a way to stop debate about slavery in the territories. 
• The Dred Scott decision opened up huge sectional divisions among Democrats, leaving an opening for a different party's candidate to win the presidency.

The Lincoln – Douglas Debates

• Abraham Lincoln – an abolitionist from Illinois helped organize the Republican Party in 1856
• Lincoln and Douglas both running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 1858.
• Lincoln stated: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free."
• Douglas believed that slavery should be decided by the people: He was for popular sovereignty

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