Let me put it to you this way. Taney himself thought the decision would resolve the matter of Slavery once and for all.
Let me put it to you this way. Nothing became an Opinion of the Court because of what Taney may have thought. Only what a majority concurred in became an Opinion of the Court. The majority Opinion of the Court settled what the law stated. It was never overturned judicially. Amendments to the Constitution changed the law.
As a slave, Etheldred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri. That question was decided by the Missouri Supreme Court. It was correctly decided pursuant to what was then Missouri state law. Etheldred Scott not being a citizen of Missouri, the claim of jurisdiction pursuant to diversity of state citizenship necessarily failed.
The reason for that according to Taney, was that a black man had never been considered a citizen from the beginning, was not then and there a citizen, and could not ever be a citizen!
You greatly misrepresent Taney's reasoning. Taney correctly stated that a slave had no municipal status. Scott was not a citizen at birth. Neither was he an alien. Freedom would not make him a citizen, and eligibility for naturalization required one to be an alien. After the war, the 13th Amendment freed slaves but did not make them citizens. They became citizens by virtue of the 14th Amendment. This Amendment was a necessity because, as non-aliens, they were not eligible for naturalization.
Remember too that Taney was Lincoln’s number one adversary. A side note: Taney, as Chief Justice of the “eminent tribunal” swore Abe into office, and then had to sit there and squirm as Lincoln ripped him a new one. Taney was one of the, named by Lincoln, slavery promoters mentioned in the House Divided speech, pre-election.
What made Taney on the opposite side of Lincoln was that Taney insisted on judging according to the law as written, and not creating law from the bench for political reasons.
We Pennsylvanians think it strange, and it seems curious to read the prints or newspapers, from some states and find - For sale a plantation, a house and lot, horses, cows, sheep and hogs; also a number of Negroes - men and women and children - some very valuable ones… In this inhuman traffic and cruel trade the most tender ties are torn asunder, the nearest connections broken. - The Rev. Jacob Gruber, Camp Meeting, Washington County, Md., 1819
For his statements, Gruber was prosecuted. In closing arguments, defense counsel argued that,
There is no law that forbids us to speak of slavery as we think of it. Any man has a right to publish his opinions on that subject whenever he pleases. It is a subject of national concern, and may at all times be freely discussed. Mr. Gruber did quote the language of our great act of national independence, and insisted on the principles contained in that venerated instrument. He did rebuke those masters, who, in the exercise of power, are deaf to the calls of humanity; and he warned them of the evils they might bring upon themselves. He did speak with abhorrence of those reptiles, who live by trading in human flesh, and enrich themselves by tearing the husband from the wife -- the infant from the bosom of the mother....
Rev. Gruber was acquitted. The famous defense counsel who so argued was none other than Roger Taney.
"When Massachusetts neighbors criticized Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story for having upheld the fugitive slave law in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, he [Justice Story] wrote, "You know full well that I have ever been opposed to slavery. But I take my standard of duty as a judge from the Constitition." (Walker Lewis, Without Fear or Favor, p. 355)
"Taney had early owned slaves, and in 1805 was assessed on three. With marriage his household expanded and we can gather some idea of its growing size from the fact that in 1818 he emancipated seven Negroes and in 1821 an eighth. He also joined with his brother Octavius in freeing two others they inherited from their father. Although he and Anne retained servants, they kept no slaves other than two who were too old to support themselves. Those that they freed were furnished with wallets which, in case of need, they could present for an allowance, paid in small coins as a protection against swindlers." (Walker Lewis, Without Fear or Favor, pp. 44-5)
"Taney already had emancipated most of his own slaves, and it is known that he made at least one substantial loan to enable a free Negro to purchase his wife's liberty." (Walker Lewis, Without Fear or Favor, p. 76)
Taney was a "slavery promoter" in the same sense as Justice Joseph Story. He took his standard of justice as a judge from the Constitution. However immoral slavery was, it was then constitutional and lawful.
I have maintained on these CW threads that the Dred Scott decision was the belligerent act that lead to the Civil War. Which makes the outcome of the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and then the 13th Amendment the official slow death of Article IV, section2, clause3. I see a thread from the “fugitive slave cause”, to the Fugitive Slave Act, to the Compromise of 1850, to the Dred Scott decision and through the Civil War and Lincoln. Can you see it?
I see a steaming turd.
The lawyers for the parties conspired to present a palpably false statement of agreed facts, for example, falsely claiming that John Emerson had sold Scott to John Sanford at a time when Emerson was long dead.
The claim of jurisdiction should also have failed because John Sanford was never the owner of the slave Scott.
The legal owner of Scott was Calvin Chaffee, a Massachusetts abolitionist congressman. Days after the Supreme Court opinion was issued, Chaffee issued a quit claim deed regarding Scott. Scott's wages, which had been held in escrow while the legal proceedings took place, were claimed by Mrs. Calvin Chaffee.