The simple answer is that Dred Scott wanted freedom for himself and his wife, Harriet Robinson. They'd been legally married at Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. But as they moved around from place to place, Dred and Harriet's status changed depending on where they lived.
There was a major principle at stake here. Some argued that it was absurd that someone could be free in one part of the country, but then suddenly become a slave once they crossed a state line. Indeed, some state courts had decided similar cases in the past according to the principle of "once free, always free," and Dred Scott's lawyers hoped to see that principle upheld by the US Supreme Court.
However, that didn't happen. In a ruling which has gone down in infamy, the Court, led by Chief Justice Taney, held...
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that Dred Scott was still a slave, and so had no legal standing. Whatever status that Dred and Harriet had enjoyed in free territories such as Illinois and Wisconsin, they had always been slaves and were not therefore entitled to the same legal protection accorded to citizens. For good measure, the Court also struck down as unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise, which had been designed to halt the spread of slavery.
Dred and Harriet were subsequently given their freedom, but in wider political terms, the damage had already been done. Thanks to the Supreme Court's infamous ruling, the United States moved one step closer to all-out civil war.
Why did Dred Scott sue Emerson and Sandford, and what was his goal?
Though born a slave in a slave state, Dred Scott had been taken by his owner, Dr. John Emerson, to a number of free states and territories. Emerson was a surgeon in the US Army and, as part of his job, often had to move around the country. On one such work assignment, he ended up at Fort Snelling in the Wisconsin territory, where slavery was prohibited. By bringing a slave into a free territory, Emerson was effectively violating the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
During his time in the Wisconsin territory, Dred Scott got married, something he would not have been able to do had he remained in a slave state. Yet Scott's owners continued to hire him, and his new wife, out as slaves, despite their residing in other free territories such as Illinois. Scott wanted to buy freedom for himself and his wife, but his owners refused his request. So Scott felt he had no choice but to take the matter to court. The case went all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which in an infamous ruling, held that Scott, by virtue of his "inferior" race, was not an American citizen and as such had no rights that the Court was bound to respect.
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