Chapter 91: The Supreme Court denies Dred Scott his freedom and all his rights.

At age 61, Dred Scott’s fate has been in the courts for eleven years since his lawyers in St. Louis cite the 1852 Lemon v New York decision – “once free, forever free” – to gain his release.

However, the current High Court will disagree. Under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney it includes five Justices from the South, all of whom are slave owners. By a 7-2 vote, it concludes that:

• The Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over Scott’s case.
• As a negro, Scott is not, and cannot become, a citizen of the United States.
• Therefore he had no right (standing) to appeal the Missouri state decision in Federal court.
• Congress over-stepped its powers in trying to limit the free movement of property.
• The only way that Scott could be freed is if his owner declares him free.
• Hence the Missouri “once free, always free” principle lacks merit.
• Finally the entire 1820 Missouri Compromise is invalid.

In what will later be dismissed as obiter dictum, off the cuff personal musings, Taney delivers
a devastating assessment on the fate of those enslaved:

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.