hibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820". 3 During these years, Scott married and had two children. When Dr. Emerson died, Scott was sent back to St. Louis to Mrs. Emerson. This was when Scott argued that under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, the fact that he and Dr. Emerson lived in Illinois and Minnesota made him a free man. In the Missouri Compromise, in order to stop the further spread of slavery, the Missouri Compromise stipulated that all the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri, except Missouri, would be free, and the territory below that line would be slave. 4
             In the late 1850's the issue of slavery was a major concern. The Mexican War provided the United States with a lot of new territory, and the question of the future of slavery in the territories was on everyone's mind. 5 The people of the North who were against slavery wanted Congress to exclude slavery from the new territories. John C. Calhoun, the spokesman for the South, said "the territories were the common possession of the states, Congress had no right to prevent any citizen from taking slaves into them. To do so would violate the Fifth Amendment, which forbade Congress to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and slaves were property." 6 The Southern attempt to extend the line of the Missouri Compromise failed, so the Southern States only hope was Calhoun's constitutional criticism of Congress' attempt to prohibit slavery in the territories. Calhoun's argument was that the territories were the common property of the states of the union and it was the Southern belief that the states should have the right to decide on the legality of slavery in their states and or territory and it is beyond congressional power to prohibit slavery.
             Southerners as well as Northerners believed that their existence depended on an equal balance amongst slave and f...