Talk:Dred Scott

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: This is a decent article. There are, however, some problems. I will go over them at length after a rereading but the constitutional law issues are addressed rather feebly, as the issue before the Supreme Court in its narrowest construction simply regarded whether Scott had standing to bring federal suit as he had been determined merely a resident in the Missouri Supreme Court, and thus was not necessarily a citizen, a requirement to sue a citizen from another state in federal courts under the Diversity of Citizenship Clause within the US Constitution. Frankly, unless you have studied Constitutional Law, the many issues that flow through the case cannot be properly addressed. The two most reliable sources I have seen are A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons. Though somewhat subjective, it directly and clearly discusses Dred Scott's life and the various state, federal, and Supreme Courts. Review pages 141-232. Don Fehrenberger's biography is an excellent resource and the earlier Supreme Court decision in Strader v. Graham, 51 U.S. 82 (1850) is useful as well.˜˜˜˜ (edit)

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TODO: How could Brown have been freed some years after the Supreme Court hearing (1857) and then have died (1858) over a year later? The numbers don't make sense.

What's the difference between trial and case? DS 13:45, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

DS, according to the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, the definition of a trial is: "Examination of evidence and applicable law by a competent tribunal to determine the issue of specified charges or claims." In the same dictionary, it defines a case as: "An action or a suit or just grounds for an action." Hope it answers your question. Bibliomaniac15 01:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Sad...a nonsensical sentence ("When he born he was just called "Sam") managed to survive here for four months. Sigh... john k 23:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just curious - could possibly there have been those in the majority opinion that thought slavery was wrong, but that abolishing it via the bench would have been a usurpation of the court's power, and that they would prefer it be done via legislation in the legislative branches of government? -Brien

Why does George Bush keep referencing this case? I have heard it compared to Roe v Wade. What is the connection?

-Brian Havelka

[edit] Cleanup

This article has some grammatical errors and lack of information. If you compare this article to Dred Scott v. Sandford, you would probably consider redirecting. Much is very repetitive from the said article. I also have to bring up the spelling and grammatical errors that hinder understanding. This might be a case of possible vandalism. Also, the lack of images is rather disconcerting. Bibliomaniac15 01:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] date/year of birth?

I copyedited this article but there remains one internal contradiction as follows:

Dred Scott (ca. 1799 - September 17, 1858)
Dred Scott was born in Southampton County, Virginia in 1795 

I'm not sure which is correct and have left the contradiction for someone with a book or other resource that can confirm this detail. skywriter 09:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

In the days of Dred Scott, a slave's birth was usually not recorded. Therefore, it was up to guesswork. Most slaves gave their birthday as a season. Refer to Frederick Dougalass' autobiography. Bibliomaniac15 21:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

His tombstone says 1799. The top of the article says 1795. Some external links say "late 1790's". Another link from Wash U. states "1799".[1] I'm thinking "c. 1799" would make the most sense. Rklawton 14:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Someone keeps vandalising this article. Find the person and give them a warning. Bibliomaniac15 21:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done a revert or two also. I've left a warning for the IP User_talk:172.154.12.233 . But you know how IPs are. If the user vandalises again, we'll escalate the warnings accordingly. -- Discordanian 01:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portrait

The image of the painted portrait of Scott we have lacks any information on source, artist, or date. If anyone has any info, please add it. -- Infrogmation 14:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I was able to track down some info and added it to image page. If anyone can find a good usable version of the contemporary photo (is only one known?) of Scott, uploading it to the Commons would be nifty. -- Infrogmation 15:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Porn actor use of Dred Scott name for goal of free advertising

Someone linked to the page of a porn actor who apparently uses the name of the historical Dred Scott to further his career. There is no evidence in that article that the porn star is using anything but a fake name. There is no biographical material in that article. And, it looks very much like that article is free advertising for a commercial product. It contains no verifiable biographical material. I have therefore discontinued the link and placed a note in the porn actor's Talk page. Skywriter 21:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dred Scott (porn star)

Please stop removing the disambiguation template. This is a legitimate article; whether you like the perfomer's chosen stage name or not, it is what it is. He is an award-winning performer and qualifies for an article here under WP:PORN BIO guidelines.

Having a redirect to his article is necessary—someone looking for the article about the performer who searches on "Dred Scott" will never know how to find the article they are seeking if the template doesn't redirect them.

Please remember that Wikipedia is not censored.

Please also be aware that continuing to remove the template may be considered vandalism which could result in being blocked from editing. Thanks.—Chidom ^talk  07:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

No, what this really is -- is someone trading off the name of a famous historical figure to put money in his own pocket. So Wikipedia gets used for crass commercialism. I'm glad other encyclopedias don't cave to business people who adopt false names, don't get their name legally changed, carefully guard against any honest biographical information about themselves from being told, all with the goal of pulling young readers away from an article about an important historical person.

And, Chidom, your threat disgusts me, as I am sure all thinking people who see your vicious comment. Trying to crush discussion by threatening to stop someone else from contributing to Wikipedia. Way to go, Chidom, courageous one. You sure do stand for the first amendment, eh? Threaten to crush any voice who disagrees with yours. Skywriter 06:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as this war goes, I'm with Skywriter all the way. The damn thing is the question of how legitimate the porn star's article is; it's not like there can be a blanket policy against porn articles either. Oh, dillemma... —66.195.209.88 14:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't create the Wikipedia:blocking policy, Skywriter—the fact is, Wikipedia has a policy about constantly reverting another editor's contributions. The behavior can result in being blocked from editing.

Like it or not, Dred Scott is the name of a porn star; why he chose the name is immaterial; it's a fact. He's an award-winning performer and is therefore notable. His article is a stub and needs to be expanded, that's true of many, many articles on Wikipedia. (I also think it's poorly written, again, that happens here and gets cleaned up along the way.)

Continuing to remove the template is also in contradiction of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Having a soft redirect to another article on the page doesn't promulgate anything.

As for First Amendment free speech, um, hello? Who's censoring whom here?—Chidom ^talk  05:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the template to point to the Dred Scott (disambiguation) page. Anyone searching on "Dred Scott" will still arrive at this article. This means that someone looking for the porn star has an extra step to take: they will arrive at this article, click the link for the disambiguation page, and then click to go to the porn star article. I'm hopeful that this is a compromise that everyone can live with. Have good days.—Chidom ^talk  06:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

As a true blood descendant of Dred Scott on my father's side, i'm truly disgusted that someone would have the audacity to affiliate my great great great grandfather's name with porn..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.126.129.98 (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I can understand your feelings, and I agree. Unfortunately, if this performer is notable (I am not a porn patron so I wouldn't know) he merits a page. There are some truly vile people profiled on Wikipedia. But it is an encyclopedia, and we can't write our articles based on how good a person we think someone is. nut-meg (talk) 00:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] As long as they're not gay?

I didn't realize the Missouri Compromise included denial of gay rights.Dale662 (talk) 21:08, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Insane Asylum?!

Did I miss something here?

"After the ruling, with Sanford in an insane asylum, Scott was returned as property to Irene Emerson."

Unless I wasn't paying attention, we get Sanford (shouldn't that be SanDford?) by the snap of fingers in… an insane asylum (!) with no more preparation than if he had gone to the local library or the corner grocery store. Shouldn't we be told what put the man in those dire straits (the Supreme Court case or something unrelated like a family disease?)? Also, was it temporary or for the rest of his life, did he go of his own free will, was he committed, was he taken kicking and screaming, what? We may not need two paragraphs on this (the other option would be to take the phrase out entirely), but a sentence or two would do no harm. Asteriks (talk) 09:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)