The Dred Scott Decision is a landmark United States Supreme Court case known as Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford. Dred Scott was a slave who sued in court for his freedom.
On March 6, 1857, after years of litigation the case was appealed to the Supreme Court where the majority of pro-slavery judges ruled that Black people were not citizens and didn’t have the right to sue. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority of the decision wrote that Blacks “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.”
Wikipedia
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott
Video
The Dred Scott Decision (PBS)
What Was the Dred Scott Decision? (PBS)
Further Reading
Dred Scott decision (history.com)
Dred Scott’s fight for freedom (PBS)
Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision (PBS)
Dred Scott v. Sandford (Library of Congress)