Dred Scott Decision: Black People Have No Rights

Chief Justice Roger Taney's Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford on March 6, 1857, holds that Black people — free or enslaved — are not citizens, have "no rights which the white man was bound to respect," and that Congress cannot ban slavery from territories. The ruling invalidates the Missouri Compromise retroactively and legally cementes white supremacy into constitutional law.