Dred Scott Decision
Summary: Dred Scott v. Stanford was one of the most brutal anti-black decisions to come out of the antebellum Supreme Court. The Court ruled in three major ways. Firstly, they ruled that Dred Scott, and all black Americans, were not US citizens, and thus could not sue in Federal Courts. They then ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, because it deprived citizens of their right to property (in this case "property" being slaves). Finally, the Court stated that "freed" slaves were not in fact free, and that it was up to the states that harbored them to decide their rights/freedoms. This further divided abolitionist republicans, and pro-slavery democrats, and set the stage for the upcoming Civil War.
(The post-war 14th Amendment overturned Scott v Stanford by granting citizenship to all born/naturalized black Americans).
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