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Example research essay topic: Dred Scott Decision John Stuart Mill - 1,305 words

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Dred Scott was the name of an African-American slave. He was taken by his master, an officer in the U. S. Army, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin. He lived on free soil for a long period of time. When the Army ordered his master to go back to Missouri, he took Scott with him back to that slave state, where soon after his master died.

In 1846, Scott was helped by Abolitionist (anti-slavery) lawyers to sue for his freedom in court, claiming he should be free since he had lived on free soil for a long time. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, was a former slave owner from Maryland. In March of 1857, Scott lost the decision as seven out of nine Justices on the Supreme Court declared no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U. S.

citizen, or even had been a U. S. citizen. As a non-citizen, the court stated, Scott had no rights and could not sue in a Federal Court and must remain a slave. At that time there were nearly 4 million slaves in America. The courts ruling affected the status of every enslaved and free African-American in the United States.

The ruling served to turn back the clock concerning the rights of African-Americans, ignoring the fact that black men in five of the original States had been full voting citizens dating back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The Supreme Court also ruled that Congress could not stop slavery in the newly emerging territories. The Court also declared that it violated the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits Congress from depriving persons of their property without due process of law. Anti-slavery leaders in the North cited the controversial Supreme Court Decision as evidence that Southerners wanted to extend slavery throughout the nation and ultimately rule the nation itself. Southerners approved the Dred Scott decision believing Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories.

The subject of this paper is to take a United States law, policy, or court ruling and analyze it from the perspective of both John Stuart Mill and John Locke. John Stuart Mill was a famous utilitarian philosopher, who had a De ontological world view. What that means is you should do things because they are right, and not worry about the consequences. If Mill were to look at the Dred Scott decision, he would deem it unjust because the Supreme Court did not do the right thing they were more concerned with the consequences of limiting the Southerners rights to have slaves. According to Mill you are not free to lose your freedom. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it.

The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom to be allowed to alienate his freedom. (Mill pg 536) That is informally known as Mills Anti-Slavery principle. Mill would also argue that the Supreme Court took part in what he dubs the tyranny of the majority in deciding the Dred Scott case. The Tyranny of the majority is when you do something solely based on public opinion. the tyranny of the majority is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities.

But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant-society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it-its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. (Mill pg 517) Mill would argue that the Supreme Court made its ruling solely based on public opinion rather than a true moral decision. The information that I have provided thus far, would implicate, in Mills eyes that Dred Scott should be a free man and he was wronged and stripped of his inalienable right to be free by the Supreme Court of the United States. On further analysis of Mills arguments he provides a disillusioned counterexample to the information thus shown. Mill believes that the only reason why your liberty may be limited by the state is to insure that you do not harm someone else. The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.

That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, to persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others.

In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (Mill pgs 517 - 18) Does Mills General Harm Principle apply to all people? No it does not apply to all people. It excludes children, and those that are not white.

To Mill they are considered to be needy of the white man... we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. (Mill pg 518) Mills general harm principle does not apply to the Dred Scott case either because indeed he is a person of color. If indeed Dred Scott was a white man, Mills general harm principle would apply to him. Mill goes on to say that if we make engagements with another person, no matter what the case, that they must be kept. Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement, that it is injurious to themselves.

In this and most other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for not interfering unless for the sake of others, with a persons voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at least endurable, to him, and his...


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Research essay sample on Dred Scott Decision John Stuart Mill

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