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| A shameful decision. November, 2007 |
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| The ramifications of the Dred Scott Decision still lingers. |
Racist attitudes made into law, legitimized racial descrimination.
The Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Taney and the Law
The Dred Scott decision of 1857 clarified the legal status of slaves in the United States. Some historians blame the Supreme Court’s ruling that blacks were nothing more than property with the outbreak of the Civil War. The Supreme Court codified the long held notion that blacks were inferior to whites and had no legal status to petition the court for their rights.
In the case, U.S. Supreme Court, DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD, 60 U.S. 393 (1856), DRED SCOTT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JOHN F. A. SANDFORD., December Term, 1856
The basic ruling of the United States Supreme Court, announced by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, was that the framers of the Declaration of Independence were honorable men, therefore, when they held slaves while declaring universal human rights, they obviously could not have intended to include those of African descent, for that would have made them hypocrites rather than honorable men. Taney found it was "just and lawful" to reduce the black man to slavery "for his own benefit." Taney also pointed out that if blacks were citizens, they could do things protected by the Constitution, such as speak their mind, go as they please, and keep and carry arms wherever they went, which would produce "discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State." This is what the Honorable Justice Taney had to say:
"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 [60 U.S. 393, 405] 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.
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 political or law-making 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 the best 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."
The Supreme Court went on to say that blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Essentially, the Supreme Court of the United States said that blacks from Africa were inherently inferior. And whether free or not they had no rights under the U.S. Constitution.
(Note: There have been reports that Judge Taney fathered black children. It has been said that his black daughter settled in Williamsport, PA. -Editor.)
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