Dred Scott Vs Stanford Case Analysis

In 1857 the court case of Dread Scott v. Stanford and in 1896 the case Plessy v. Ferguson were introduced into the Supreme Court. They showed people of color were not considered to be anything other than property; the whole majority had no regard for the feelings of another person. The notion of slavery was just coming to light in the United States. As time grew on, the slaves and former slaves were rightly becoming increasingly outraged. Through evaluating language of exclusion throughout both Dread Scott v. Stanford and Plessy v. Ferguson concurrently, anyone can recognize the effects of dehumanization negatively impacting members of the black community. This is disconcerting because African Americans are human beings and should be treated as such. The case of Dread Scott v. Stanford harshly administered both exclusionary and dehumanizing language. In this case, the

Stanford case employs language of entitlement, so does Plessy v. Ferguson. According to the author, a “mulatto” man, Plessy, was determined to sit in the “white” coach. He appealed to the Supreme Court only after being convicted; the Court did not rule in his favor (Mayhew, Rothenburg, 2013). The plaintiff states, “Upon the other hand, if he be a colored man and be assigned so [a colored coach], he has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of a colored man,” (Mayhew, Rothenburg, 2013, p. 549). This encompasses language of entitlement through the mindset of the Caucasian male. Their mindset suggests that they were dubbed as superior. Anything other than a “white” man was property. As a result, members of the “black” community were denoted as a purchase rather than a living being. The owners of their slaves had no regard to how anyone else felt; shown by how they dehumanized African Americans. They make the argument that property cannot have property, therefore Plessy is not allowed to sit as he