[BroJoeK]

Colorado Tanker: "If Dred Scott is right (which I strongly dispute) about slaves being non-citizen chattel..."

If I understand correctly, Taney's words covered not just slaves, but anyone of African descent, freedmen & mixed blood included, as non-citizens without rights which needed to be respected.
So Taney was way, way ahead of the political debate in, say, 1857 and was laying the groundwork for, as Lincoln's House Divided speech said:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

And abolished freedmen to boot!

[colorado tanker]

Great quote - and spot on. Dred Scott was such a bad decision in so many ways.