Describe the history of the Dred Scott case in the court system of missouri on its way to the supreme court.

Dred Scott, his wife and two children had voluntarily
traveled alone almost 1200 miles down the Mississippi River from present day Minnesota,
which was then free Wisconsin to meet his then master, Dr. John Emerson. The
relationship was apparently a good one. When Dr. Emerson died, Scott offered to buy his
freedom from the widow, but she refused. He then brought suit in the local circuit court
of St. Louis, Missouri. The case was Scott vs. Emerson. Scott lost
his original case, but the trial judge agreed with Scott's lawyer that the verdict had
been based on hearsay evidence, and declared a mistrial. The case was retried in 1850
when a jury ruled in favor of Scott and his wife, determining that they were illegally
kept as slaves while in Wisconsin territory where slavery was illegal. Mrs. Emerson
appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court which overturned the verdict. The Missouri
Supreme Court decision reversed a 28 year precedent.

A new
case was brought in federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship; because the
Emerson Estate was probated by Ms. Emerson's brother after her death, Dr. John Sanford
of New York. Scott lost again in Federal District Court, and the case was appealed to
the U.S. Supreme Court. You know the rest of the story.