DREAD:

Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case: The Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise Declared Unconstitutional (NY Times, March 6, 1857)

The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:

First - Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.

Second - The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.

Third - The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.

So long as we reserve to ourselves the right to decide who is human, and entitled to basic human rights, and who is not, cases like Dred Scot, Korematsu, and Roe v. Wade will continue to blight the national soul. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 6, 2003 11:45 PM