On this date in 1846 Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit against Irene Emerson for their freedom. The Dred Scott case was first brought to trial in 1847 in the first floor, west wing courtroom of St. Louis's Courthouse. Scott, a black slave from Missouri claimed his freedom on the basis of seven years of residence in a free state and a free territory. He would go on to lose the historic Dred Scott v. Sandford of 1857. The United States Supreme Court ruled seven to two against Scott, finding that neither he, nor any person of African ancestry, could claim citizenship in the United States, and that therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules.