From Scott v.

« From Scott v.

Sandford The Dred Scott case, formally known as Scott v.

Sandford , was one of the most important cases in American history.

In a 7 to 2 ruling in 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that African Americans could not be considered citizens of the United States and therefore had no right to sue in federal courts.

Chief Justice RogerTaney, in denying freedom to a slave named Dred Scott, issued the infamous statement that blacks were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man wasbound to respect.” The Court declared the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in territories north and west of Missouri, invalid, and many historians believe thecourt’s decision played a major role in bringing about the American Civil War (1861-1865). From Scott v.

Sandford Mr.

Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court … The question is simply this: can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed andbrought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by thatinstrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution? It will be observed that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country and sold andheld as slaves.

The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born ofparents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State in the sense in which the word 'citizen' is used in the Constitution of the United States.

And thisbeing the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are thedescendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves … It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws.

The decision of that question belonged to the politicalor lawmaking power, to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution.

The duty of the court is to interpret the instrument they have framed with thebest lights we can obtain on the subject, and to administer it as we find it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted. In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits and the rights of citizenship as a member ofthe Union.

It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States.

He mayhave all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State.

For, previous to theadoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow himwith all its rights.

But this character, of course, was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those securedto him by the laws of nations and the comity of States.

Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting theConstitution of the United States … It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons who were, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, recognised as citizens in the severalStates became also citizens of this new political body, but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else.

And the personalrights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, orwho should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded.

It wasthe union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specifiedpurposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States.

And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not beforepossess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of theUnited States. It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted.

And in order to do this, we must recur to theGovernments and institutions of the thirteen colonies when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignties, and took their places in the family ofindependent nations.

We must inquire who, at that time, were recognised as the people or citizens of a State whose rights and liberties had been outraged by theEnglish Government, and who declared their independence and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms. In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of personswho had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to beincluded in the general words used in that memorable instrument. It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the worldat the time of the Declaration of Independence and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted.

But the public history of every Europeannation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or politicalrelations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery forhis benefit.

He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it.

This opinion was at that timefixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race.

It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics which no one thought of disputing orsupposed to be open to dispute, and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters ofpublic concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion. And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people.

They not only seized them onthe coast of Africa and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use, but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they couldmake a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world … The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive: It begins by declaring that, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them withanother, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect forthe opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life,. »