Southern History Series: The Dred Scott Decision

Have you ever read the Dred Scott decision of 1857?

If you haven’t done so, I would highly recommend it. The Dred Scott decision was written by Chief Justice Roger Taney who was a native of Maryland. It struck down the Missouri Compromise which opened all the Western territories to slavery. Taney used history and law to explain why blacks were not American citizens and had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” He also said the Constitution was formed by the Founders “for them and their posterity, but for no one else.”

Cornell Law:

“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 and held 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 of parents 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 this being 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 the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves …

The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them. …

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 political relations, 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 for his 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 time fixed 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 or supposed 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 of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion …

The first of these acts is the naturalization law, which was passed at the second session of the first Congress, March 26, 1790, and confines the right of becoming citizens “to aliens being free white persons.” ….

It would seem to have been used merely because it followed out the line of division which the Constitution has drawn between the citizen race, who formed and held the Government, and the African race, which they held in subjection and slavery and governed at their own pleasure.

Another of the early laws of which we have spoken is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792 at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant with the one just mentioned. It directs that every “free able-bodied white male citizen” shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word “citizen” to exclude unnaturalized foreigners, the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free, but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language. …

The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, 2 Stat. 809, and it provides:

That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States.

Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.”

Aside from his ruling in the Dred Scott decision, Taney is known for the Ex parte Merryman decision in which he denied that Lincoln had the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and arrest John Merryman who was being held as a political prisoner in Fort McHenry following the Baltimore Riot of 1861. Lincoln ignored and defied the order of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

After the War Between the States, the Reconstruction Amendments had to be passed at gunpoint by the Republican Party to establish black citizenship and voting rights. This was because of Taney’s ruling in the Dred Scott decision and the fear the Civil Rights Act of 1866 would be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The Founders had created a White Republic and a voluntary Union of sovereign states for their posterity which Lincoln and his Radical Republican allies in Congress overturned to create the centralized and consolidated empire that we live under today.