The result of this decision made by the United States Supreme Court held that free blacks might be citizens with full equality in some states but could never be citizens of the United States. At the time of the Civil War, black Michiganders enjoyed most other civil rights, but not political or social rights. The 1850 constitution limited the right to vote to adult white males. Blacks could not marry whites, and school districts could segregate pupils on the basis of race. In 1846, a convention of black citizens petitioned the Michigan legislature to extend the right to vote to blacks. The legislature refused, a senate committee declaring, “Our government is formed by, and for the benefit of, and to be controlled by, the descendants of European nations, as contradistinguished from all other persons. The humane and liberal policy of our government at the same time, extends its protection to the person and property of every human being within its limits, irrespective of color, descent, or national character.” Whites, in the desire to maintain control of the government, feared extending the right to vote to blacks. The Dred Scott case is significant in several ways, but I wish to spotlight how this created further tensions between north and south and power struggles between territories and US Congress regarding bans on slavery.
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