[Ditto]

Basically, the then-bigots of the US Supreme Courts took away the protections Congresss, the President, and 2/3 of the States gave blacks.

I believe this was the "Dred Scott" case, but I am no lawyer.

It was Plessey v Ferguson decided by the SC over 30 years after the Civil War that legitimized the Jim Crow laws on the books in the South.

Dred Scott was issued in 1857, and it denied any rights to blacks (slave or free) as citizens. Scott became moot with the passage of the 13th and 14th immediately following the Civil War.

Like Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court completely ignored the letter and the intent of the Constitution in deciding both Scott and Ferguson and instead acted as legislatures to "settle" a major social issue of the day. The lesson is that bad things happen when courts overstep their authority and usurp the legislative process necessary in a Democracy.

[Alberta's Child]

Scott became moot with the passage of the 13th and 14th immediately following the Civil War.

Actually, Dred Scott is still the law of the land to this day. The 13th and 14th Amendments changed the manner in which it could be applied, but the court's basic premise in Dred Scott -- that non-persons have no rights under the U.S. Constitution -- was absolutely correct. Even in today's irrational legal climate a dog or an oak tree can't file suit in Federal court.