[114] Buchanan prevailed, while Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois, and Lincoln became a leading Republican in Illinois.[115][h]

Dred Scott v. Sandford
A portrait of Dred Scott, petitioner in Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him from a slave state to a territory that was free as a result of the Missouri Compromise. After Scott was returned to the slave state he petitioned a federal court for his freedom. His petition was denied in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).[i] In his opinion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that black people were not citizens and derived no rights from the Constitution, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional for infringing upon slave owners' "property" rights. While many Democrats hoped that Dred Scott would end the dispute over slavery in the territories, the decision sparked further outrage in the North.[118] Lincoln denounced it as the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power.