# Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) On **March 6, 1857**, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7–2 in *Dred Scott v. Sandford* that **Black people — whether enslaved or free — were not and could never be citizens of the United States**, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. Chief Justice [[Roger Taney]]'s majority opinion declared that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" — a sentence that stands as the **most infamous judicial statement in American history**. Dred Scott matters for the KB as the **proof that the Supreme Court has always been available as an instrument of racial hierarchy** — and as the historical precedent for understanding how constitutional "originalism" can be deployed to protect existing power structures. The case demonstrated that the Court could use its authority to constitutionalize white supremacy — a function it performed again in *Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896), the *Civil Rights Cases* (1883), *[[Shelby County v. Holder]]* (2013), and other decisions that stripped Black Americans of legal protections. ## What Happened **The case:** Dred Scott was an enslaved man who had been taken by his owner from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin (where slavery was prohibited by the Missouri Compromise of 1820). Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that residence in free territory had made him free. **The ruling:** Chief Justice Taney, writing for the 7–2 majority, issued three holdings: 1. **Black people are not citizens.** Taney argued that at the time of the Constitution's framing, Black people were "regarded as beings of an inferior order" who "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Therefore, they could not be citizens of the United States and had no standing to sue in federal court. 2. **Residence in free territory does not confer freedom.** Scott's time in Illinois and Wisconsin did not make him free because enslaved people were property, and the Constitution's Due Process Clause protected slaveholders' property rights in their human chattels. 3. **The Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.** Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 — which had maintained the sectional balance for 37 years — was struck down. ## Why It Matters ### The Court as Instrument of Racial Hierarchy Dred Scott is the foundational case for understanding the Supreme Court's relationship to racial power: - **1857:** Dred Scott — Black people are not citizens - **1883:** *Civil Rights Cases* — Congress cannot prohibit private racial discrimination - **1896:** *Plessy v. Ferguson* — "Separate but equal" is constitutional - **1927:** *Buck v. Bell* — Forced sterilization of "unfit" people is constitutional - **2013:** *Shelby County v. Holder* — Gutted the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirement - **Present:** The current Court's dismantling of affirmative action (*SFFA v. Harvard*, 2023) The through-line: the Court has repeatedly used its authority to constitutionalize racial hierarchy — sometimes explicitly (Dred Scott, Plessy), sometimes through seemingly neutral constitutional principles (Shelby County's "equal sovereignty of states") that have racially disparate effects. ### "[[Originalism]]" and Its Function Taney's Dred Scott opinion was an **originalist** argument: he claimed to be interpreting the Constitution according to the original understanding of its framers. His conclusion — that the framers never intended Black people to be citizens — was contested even at the time (Justice Curtis's dissent documented extensive evidence of Black citizenship at the founding), but the *method* is significant: Taney used "what the framers intended" as the framework for constitutionalizing white supremacy. This does not mean that all originalism is racist. But it does mean that the originalist method has a **historical track record** of being deployed in service of racial hierarchy — a track record that is relevant to understanding its current deployment by the [[Federalist Society]]'s judicial project. ### The Accelerant Dred Scott was intended to settle the slavery question permanently in the slaveholders' favor. Instead, it **accelerated the crisis** that produced the [[American Civil War]]: - It radicalized Northern opinion against the "Slave Power" controlling the Court - It convinced many Northerners that compromise with slavery was impossible - It helped propel [[Abraham Lincoln]] to the presidency in 1860 - It was overturned by the **[[13th Amendment]]** (1865, abolishing slavery) and **[[Fourteenth Amendment]]** (1868, establishing birthright citizenship and equal protection) The pattern — a judicial decision intended to settle a question permanently instead radicalizing the losing side — recurs: *[[Roe v. Wade]]* (1973) energized the Religious Right; *Dobbs* (2022) energized the pro-choice movement; *[[Citizens United v. FEC]]* (2010) energized campaign finance reform advocates. ## See Also - [[Roger Taney]] — The Chief Justice who authored the opinion - [[John C. Calhoun]] — The intellectual architect of the constitutional theory Taney applied - [[The Lost Cause]] — The mythology that preserved and defended the racial hierarchy Dred Scott constitutionalized - [[Alexander Stephens]] — The "[[Cornerstone Speech]]" that made Dred Scott's racial logic the Confederacy's founding principle