A US Supreme Court decision regarding slave status. Dred Scott, a slave, had in 1834 been taken by his master into Illinois (a non-slave state) and later into territory in which slavery had been forbidden. Years later, his then owner sued for Scott’s freedom in a Missouri (slave state) court, claiming that because of his earlier stay in free territory he should be free. In 1857 the case was decided by the US Supreme Court. The majority of the court held that Scott, as a slave and as a Black person, was not a citizen of the USA, nor was he entitled to use the Missouri courts. He was not free since his status was determined by the state in which he lived when the case was brought, i.e. Missouri. In the highly tense political atmosphere of the 1850s, the Dred Scott decision immediately deepened divisions over slavery, in particular because it declared unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had banned slavery from all territory north of the 36° 30′ line of latitude.