Really? Over 40% of the Taney opinion was spent on the issue of Negro citizenship.
In Dred Scott, Taney went far beyond a simple affirmation of constitutional law, top the evident chagrin of even those who agreed with him. In his decision, Taney went to great (and dishonest) lengths to conflate Negro slaves with Negro freemen. His purpose was to stamp his racist views on the issue of Negro citizenship. His views on Negroes as "inferiors" were well established for years. Ferhenbacher notes (in The Dred Scott Case, pg 340):
"For one thing, Taney was seeking to reaffirm what he had written twenty-five years earlier about the status of Negroes in American society. As Jackson's attorney general, it will be remembered, he had prepared an official (but unpublished) opinion declaring that the African race was a "degraded class" not intended to be embraced in any provisions of the Constitution except those dealing with slavery. This doctrine went far beyond the issue raised by the Dred Scott case; for it excluded Negroes, whether free or slave, from all rights guaranteed in the Constitution (and by logical extension, presumably from all rights guaranteed in amendments to the Constitution). Yet Taney found that he could use the Dred Scott case to vindicate his extreme views at length and graft them authoritatively onto American constitutional law."
I think most of us here at FR decry the actions of liberal, activist judges. Taney not only acted as an activist in this (and other) case, he substituted his personal views for those of the collective Framers.
In Taney's own words:
"The African race in the United States even when free, are everywhere a degraded class, and exercise no political influence. The privileges they are allowed to enjoy, are accorded them as a matter of kindness and benevolence rather than right. They are the only class of persons who can be held as mere property, as slaves .... They were never regarded as a constituent portion of the sovereignty of any state.... They were not looked upon as citizens by the contracting parties who formed the Constitution. They were evidently not supposed to be included by the term citizens. And were not intended to be embraced in any of the provisions of that constitution but those which to them in terms not to be mistaken."
Your references to the mention of slavery in the Constitution (although never by that term!) are well known and have been discussed on this forum.
It is worth mentioning, too, that those "bound to service" in the American colonies were not initially African blacks. It has been documented that the first "indentured servants" were poor whites. And in the areas formerly under Spanish control, Indians were held under similar conditions.
In The Slaveholding Republic by Don E. Fehrenbacher, completed and edited by Ward M. McAfee, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 204, the same Fehrenbacher says, "Southern Supreme Court justices Roger B. Taney, John A. Campbell, and James M. Wayne displayed sterner disapproval of the slave trade than their northern colleagues Robert C. Grief and Samuel C. Nelson, and it was not until the eve of the Civil War that certain federal courts in the South became conspicuously reluctant to enforce the slave-trde laws. In short, there is little evidence confirming the view that southern men in positions of power made it a practice down through the years to undermine the enforcement program.
Quote without link or source disregarded.
[cr] Your references to the mention of slavery in the Constitution (although never by that term!) are well known and have been discussed on this forum.
A slave by any other name is a slave. The Constitution clearly recognized and protected slavery. Were that not so, the Constitution would not have been ratified.
[cr] It is worth mentioning, too, that those "bound to service" in the American colonies were not initially African blacks. It has been documented that the first "indentured servants" were poor whites. And in the areas formerly under Spanish control, Indians were held under similar conditions.
African slaves arrived in August 1619, before the Mayflower landed.
[cr] Over 40% of the Taney opinion was spent on the issue of Negro citizenship.
I guess you have conceded that you are unable to argue the merits of the case and want to digress. You could observe that Taney spent 40% of his opinion discussing the Washington Social Register and it would be equally relevant. Scott was in Missouri when he filed suit claiming to be a citizen of Missouri. The law of Missouri governed the case. Under the law of Missouri, Scott had not become free. That accords with British and American precedent. It appears you have no legal argument and just want to chat.
Over 30% of Taney's opinion was added after it was read from the bench, addressing all the matters that Justice Robbins insisted on addressing in dissent and releasing to the press. The opinion of Justice Robbins was longer than that of Taney. Of course, his brother George T. Curtis argued the case (in part) for Scott, and Justice Curtis did not want to let his brother down.
Well, there were all those laws of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, etc., to cover.
And as long ago as 1822, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky decided that free negroes and mulattoes were not citizens within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States; and the correctness of this decision is recognized, and the same doctrine affirmed, in 1 Meigs's Tenn. Reports, 331.
And if we turn to the legislation of the States where slavery had worn out, or measures taken for its speedy abolition, we shall find the same opinions and principles equally fixed and equally acted upon.
Thus, Massachusetts, in 1786, passed a law similar to the colonial one of which we have spoken. The law of 1786, like the law of 1705, forbids the marriage of any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, and inflicts a penalty of fifty pounds upon any one who shall join them in marriage; and declares all such marriage absolutely null and void, and degrades thus the unhappy issue of the marriage by fixing upon it the stain of bastardy. And this mark of degradation was renewed, and again impressed upon the race, in the careful and deliberate preparation of their revised code published in 1836. This code forbids any person from joining in marriage any white person with any Indian, negro, or mulatto, and subjects the party who shall offend in this respect, to imprisonment, not exceeding six months, in the common jail, or to hard labor, and to a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars; and, like the law of 1786, it declares the marriage to be absolutely null and void. It will be seen that the punishment is increased by the code upon the person who shall marry them, by adding imprisonment to a pecuniary penalty.
So, too, in Connecticut. We refer more particularly to the legislation of this State, because it was not only among the first to put an end to slavery within its own territory, but was the first to fix a mark of reprobation upon the African slave trade. The law last mentioned was passed in October, 1788, about nine months after the State had ratified and adopted the present Constitution of the United States; and by that law it prohibited its own citizens, under severe penalties, from engaging in the trade, and declared all policies of insurance on the vessel or cargo made in the State to be null and void. But, up to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there is nothing in the legislation of the State indicating any change of opinion as to the relative rights and position of the white and black races in this country, or indicating that it meant to place the latter, when free, upon a level with its citizens. And certainly nothing which would have led the slaveholding States to suppose, that Connecticut designed to claim for them, under the new Constitution, the equal rights and privileges and rank of citizens in every other State.
The first step taken by Connecticut upon this subject was as early as 1774, wen it passed an act forbidding the further importation of slaves into the State. But the section containing the prohibition is introduced by the following preamble: 'And whereas the increase of slaves in this State is injurious to the poor, and inconvenient.'
This recital would appear to have been carefully introduced, in order to prevent any misunderstanding of the motive which induced the Legislature to pass the law, and places it distinctly upon the interest and convenience of the white populationexcluding the inference that it might have been intended in any degree for the benefit of the other.
And in the act of 1784, by which the issue of slaves, born after the time therein mentioned, were to be free at a certain age, the section is again introduced by a preamble assigning a similar motive for the act. It is in these words:
'Whereas sound policy requires that the abolition of slavery should be effected as soon as may be consistent with the rights of individuals, and the public safety and welfare'-showing that the right of property in the master was to be protected, and that the measure was one of policy, and to prevent the injury and inconvenience, to the whites, of a slave population in the State.
And still further pursuing its legislation, we find that in the same statute passed in 1774, which prohibited the further importation of slaves into the State, there is also a provision by which any negro, Indian, or mulatto servant, who was found wandering out of the town or place to which he belonged, without a written pass such as is therein described, was made liable to be seized by any one, and taken before the next authority to be examined and delivered up to his master-who was required to pay the charge which had accrued thereby. And a subsequent section of the same law provides, that if any free negro shall travel without such pass, and shall be stopped, seized, or taken up, he shall pay all charges arising thereby. And this law was in full operation when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, and was not repealed till 1797. So that up to that time free negroes and mulattoes were associated with servants and slaves in the police regulations established by the laws of the State.
And again, in 1833, Connecticut passed another law, which made it penal to set up or establish any school in that State for the instruction of persons of the African race not inhabitants of the State, or to instruct or teach in any such school or institution, or board or harbor for that purpose, any such person, without the previous consent in writing of the civil authority of the town in which such school or institution might be.
And it appears by the case of Crandall v. The State, reported in 10 Conn. Rep., 340, that upon an information filed against Prudence Crandall for a violation of this law, one of the points raised in the defence was, that the law was a violation of the Constitution of the United States; and that the persons instructed, although of the African race, were citizens of other States, and therefore entitled to the rights and privileges of citizens in the State of Connecticut. But Chief Justice Dagget, before whom the case was tried, held, that persons of that description were not citizens of a State, within the meaning of the word citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and were not therefore entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in other States.
The case was carried up to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State, and the question fully argued there. But the case went off upon another point, and no opinion was expressed on this question.
We have made this particular examination into the legislative and judicial action of Connecticut, because, from the early hostility it displayed to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, we may expect to find the laws of that State as lenient and favorable to the subject race as those of any other State in the Union; and if we find that at the time the Constitution was adopted, they were not even there raised to the rank of citizens, but were still held and treated as property, and the laws relating to them passed with reference altogether to the interest and convenience of the white race, we shall hardly find them elevated to a higher rank anywhere else.
A brief notice of the laws of two other States, and we shall pass on to other considerations.
By the laws of New Hampshire, collected and finally passed in 1815, no one was permitted to be enrolled in the militia of the State, but free white citizens; and the same provision is found in a subsequent collection of the laws, made in 1855. Nothing could more strongly mark the entire repudiation of the African race. The alien is excluded, because, being born in a foreign country, he cannot be a member of the community until he is naturalized. But why are the African race, born in the State, not permitted to share in one of the highest duties of the citizen? The answer is obvious; he is not, by the institutions and laws of the State, numbered among its people. He forms no part of the sovereignty of the State, and is not therefore called on to uphold and defend it.
Again, in 1822, Rhode Island, in its revised code, passed a law forbidding persons who were authorized to join persons in marriage, from joining in marriage any white person with any negro, Indian, or mulatto, under the penalty of two hundred dollars, and declaring all such marriages absolutely null and void; and the same law was again re-enacted in its revised code of 1844. So that, down to the last-mentioned period, the strongest mark of inferiority and degradation was fastened upon the African race in that State.
It would be impossible to enumerate and compress in the space usually allotted to an opinion of a court, the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in the sixth edition of his Commentaries, (published in 1848, 2 vol., 258, note b,) that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.
The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, throughout the thirteen States by which that instrument was framed; and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we are bound, out of respect to the State sovereignties, to assume they had deemed it just and necessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.
* * *
Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant with the one just mentioned. It directs that every 'free able-bodied white male citizen' shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word 'citizen' to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.
The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809,) and it provides: 'That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States. Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.
And even as late as 1820, (chap. 104, sec. 8,) in the charter to the city of Washington, the corporation is authorized 'to restrain and prohibit the nightly and other disorderly meetings of slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes,' thus associating them together in its legislation; and after prescribing the punishment that may be inflicted on the slaves, proceeds in the following words: 'And to punish such free negroes and mulattoes by penalties not exceeding twenty dollars for any one offence; and in case of the inability of any such free negro or mulatto to pay any such penalty and cost thereon, to cause him or her to be confined to labor for any time not exceeding six calendar months.' And in a subsequent part of the same section, the act authorizes the corporation 'to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city.'