How State Courts Pushed Back on an Infamous U.S. Supreme Court Case 

In recent years, many in the public have perceived U.S. Supreme Court decisions — including those relating to abortion, affirmative action, and presidential immunity — as rife with bias, politicization, and misapplication of laws, history, and precedent. Though such decisions are often thought to be the final word on a particular issue, that is not always the case. In fact, state courts have a history of departing from Supreme Court rulings.

One famous — or infamous — case that illustrates this point is Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott was enslaved in Missouri but had been taken to and lived in Illinois and other free territories from 1833 to 1843. His enslaver died in 1843, and his enslaver’s widow leased him out for three additional years. After attempting and failing to purchase his freedom in 1846, Scott filed suit in Missouri court but lost. In 1853, he sued in federal court, claiming that having resided in free territory meant he was free.

His enslaver argued that Black Americans could not be citizens under the U.S. Constitution. In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote a 7–2 majority opinion siding with the enslaver and holding that Black people “whose ancestors were imported into [the United States], and sold as slaves” could not be U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were free or enslaved. The majority determined that Scott, an enslaved man, lacked standing because he was not a citizen and could not sue in federal court, so the case was dismissed on procedural grounds.

Despite this dismissal, the majority further held that the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which barred slavery in certain U.S. territories, was unconstitutional. Enslaved people were property, the majority reasoned, and laws depriving enslavers of property violated the Fifth Amendment. Justice Samuel Nelson’s concurrence acknowledged the question of the status of enslaved people transported into or through free territories, but noted it was not decided in the case and that the majority deferred to Missouri courts denying free status.

Justices Benjamin Curtis and John McLean wrote important dissents that were utilized by state courts and other bodies. Curtis’s dissent critiqued Taney’s argument that Black people could not be U.S. citizens, referencing multiple state constitutions, ratified before and after the U.S. constitution, that indicated that free Black people were citizens. Five of the original 13 states allowed Black people to vote and considered them to be citizens. He also referenced the Articles of Confederation, which stated that “free inhabitants of each of these states . . . shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states.”

McLean called Taney’s views “more a matter of taste than law.” Referencing a treaty with Mexico and the admission into the Union of Florida and Louisiana — the latter of which granted broad citizenship to mixed-race and Creole inhabitants — he noted that “we have made citizens of all grades, combinations, and colors.”

McLean and Curtis further argued the Court should not have opined on the legality of the Missouri Compromise after holding it lacked jurisdiction. Curtis stated that he did “not hold any opinion of this court, or any court, binding, when expressed on a question not legitimately before it.” They also critiqued the overturning of the Missouri Compromise on the merits: Anti-slavery provisions were not prohibited in the Constitution and enslaving people was not a “natural right” but rather an activity governed by law and subject to Congress’s regulation.

Though state courts are expected to give deference to Supreme Court rulings on matters of federal law, several knowingly issued rulings directly in opposition to Dred Scott.

The Ohio Supreme Court, for example, directly and indirectly referenced Dred Scott while holding in Anderson v. Poindexter that enslaved people were free the moment they entered Ohio with enslaver consent. The majority opinion and concurrences explicitly dismissed the Taney’s opinion, relying instead on Curtis and McLean’s dissents. In a separate concurrence, Chief Justice Thomas Bartley agreed with the outcome but criticized his colleagues for ignoring the Dred Scott opinion.

Just after the decision came down, the Maine legislature released resolutions declaring Dred Scott an extra-judicial opinion due to lack of jurisdiction. Lawmakers also asked the state high court to give its opinion on whether free Black people of Maine could vote. Upholding the right to vote for free Black men, the court cited numerous state constitutions — like the Dred Scott dissenters — and noted that “it is believed there has been no instance in [Maine] in which the right to vote has been denied to any person resident within the state, on account of his color.”

And Lemmon v. New York, decided by New York’s high court in 1860, rejected Dred Scott in an opinion that freed eight enslaved people brought by Jonathan and Juliet Lemmon from Virginia to New York en route to Texas. New York law provided that any enslaved people brought to New York in transit would be freed. Relying on Dred Scott, the Lemmons argued that the law unconstitutionally deprived them of property. The court disagreed, holding that New York had the right to determine the legal status of people in its state, that the law did not violate interstate commerce or fugitive slave laws, and that while state courts often defer to the laws of other states, New York had intentionally chosen not to respect laws related to the transportation of enslaved people. A concurrence also rejected Taney’s view of enslaved people as property and argued Dred Scott did not apply to the Lemmons’ case because it concerned only Missouri’s laws regulating people’s statuses.

A notable dissent, authored by Judge Thomas Clerke, agreed with Taney and led to concern from anti-slavery groups and advocates that Lemmon would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and slavery could thereby be forced upon the North. The Lemmons had transferred their rights to the state of Virginia, which planned to appeal because it saw the case as an assault on slavery and the ability to transport enslaved people. However, before any such appeal could materialize, the Civil War had begun and Virginia had seceded from the Union, shifting the state’s focus to enshrining and protecting the institution of slavery in the Confederate Constitution.

State courts’ responses to the Dred Scott decision show that questions about the limits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s power have been present for centuries. Past experience suggests that if state courts see the Court’s decisions as extreme, we may see them exert their own power by narrowing or even ignoring aspects of the Court’s decisions they consider guidelines — but not requirements.

Marcelius Braxton is the director of the Center for Social Change and Belonging and an affiliate associate teaching professor of Philosophy and African Studies at Penn State University.

Suggested Citation: Marcelius Braxton, How State Courts Pushed Back on an Infamous U.S. Supreme Court Case, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ(Jul. 23, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-state-courts-pushed-back-infamous-us-supreme-court-case