“The question is simply this: can a negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution? . . . It is the judgment of this court that it appears . . . that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen . . . in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution.”
United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
The decision in the excerpt held which of the following to be unconstitutional?
The Missouri Compromise
Based on the excerpt from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s ruling in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case, the decision held that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional.
Specifically, Taney ruled that Dred Scott, who was born into slavery but had lived in free territories covered by the Missouri Compromise, could not be a U.S. citizen. This implicitly struck down the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in the northern portion of the Louisiana Territory.
By denying citizenship to Scott and all African Americans descended from slaves, even those residing in free territories, Taney effectively rendered the Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery in certain areas unconstitutional and unenforceable.