1850-1859---The Dred Scott Decision

MARCH 6, 1857:       

 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), also known as the “Dred Scott Decision,” was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

It made two main rulings. The first ruling was that African-Americans were not citizens, and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. The second ruling was that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in any territory acquired subsequent to the creation of the United States.  

It is widely regarded as the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court. 

Not only did it consign Blacks (slave and free) to the ash heaps of humanity, but it legally invalidated the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Missouri Compromise both, opening the entire nation to the introduction or re-introduction or endless continuation of slavery.

Dred Scott, an African-American slave, had asked a United States Circuit Court to award him his freedom because he and his master had resided in a State (Illinois) and a territory (Wisconsin Territory) where slavery had been banned. Chief Justice Roger Taney, writing for the court, held that Scott, as a person of African ancestry, was not a citizen of the United States and therefore had no right to sue in federal court:

“A black man, he wrote, has no rights which a white man is bound to respect,”  Taney opined.

This holding was contrary to the practice of numerous States at the time, particularly Free States, where free blacks did in fact enjoy the rights of citizens, such as the right to vote and hold public office. 

 In what is sometimes considered mere obiter dictum, the Court went on to hold that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories because slaves are personal property and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protects property owners against deprivation of their property without due process of law. 

In one fell swoop based on skin tone, Taney, a Marylander, and the longest-serving Chief Justice to that time, known until then for his reasoned judicial work, destroyed his legacy and the nation by stripping free men of their rights, stripping slaves of any legal recourse for their woes, undoing Congressional power over the States and Territories, and making the Civil War all but inevitable.