When I did more research on how the Civil War started, I got confused by how the Missouri Compromise got repealed then overturned, but this is what I learned:
- The Dred Scott case said nothing about forcing all of the Northeastern states and other northern states to legalize slavery. It only said that slavery was protected by the Due Process Clause and Property Clause, meaning that the federal government can’t take away slaves, wherever it discussed the Missouri Compromise.
- The Missouri Compromise has already ended with the Kansas Nebraska Act. The Dred Scott decision confirmed that it can’t be enforced.
It was still a bad decision, because even if it made slavery legal everywhere in the western territories, it made people, both past and present, think that it legalized slavery everywhere. Worst of all, that’s how the Civil War started.