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How did the Dred Scott case contribute to outbreak of the Civil War?

In 1857 a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Dred Scott (1795?–1858), a slave who was seeking his freedom, declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. This ruling increased tensions between the North and the South over the issue of slavery and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–65). The Missouri Compromise was reached in 1820. At this time northern states had already banned the buying and selling of slaves, but southern states still allowed slavery because their economies depended on it. Many new states were also forming and the issue of whether a new state would be admitted to the Union as a free state or slave state was important, especially because Congress was made up equally of slave states and free states. The compromise was a way to keep the number even by allowing Missouri to join the Union as...

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