The Scott decision was wrong even at the time, as it claimed blacks had never been and never could be citizens of the United States.
In fact, blacks had at various times been full citizens of various states, including at the time when the Constitution was implemented and at the time of the Scott decision.
Thus the decision was based on factual errors. There was also nothing in the Constitution at the time giving the Court, or Congress for that matter, the right to decide who was and was not a citizen of the United States, with exception of immigration laws. That power, with regard to persons born in the US, had previously been left to the States, with a citizen of a State automatically considered a citizen of the United States.
Taney arrogated to the Court not only the right to decide who was a citizen as of 1857, but who could EVER be a citizen. This rather breathtaking assumption of power to the federal government is amazing in those who theoretically supported states’ rights.
It is interesting that all the southern demands leading up to the war required expansion of federal power: federal protection for those taking slaves into the territories, federal enforcement in the states of the fugitive slave laws, federal determination of who was or was not a citizen of the United States.
As the Constitution was written, they could not. The Founders, being great students of history, established our country in a manner similar to that of Rome, which had 3 different types of persons:.
Among the Romans, the libertini, or freedmen, were formerly distinguished by a threefold division. They, sometimes obtained what was called the greater liberty, thereby becoming Roman citizens. To this privilege, those who were enfranchised by testament, by the census, or by the vindicta, appear to have been alone admitted: sometimes they obtained the lesser liberty only, and became Latins; whose condition is thus described by Justinian: "They never enjoyed the right of succession [to estates] .... For although they led the lives of free men, yet, with their last breath they lost both their lives and liberties; for their possessions, like the goods of slaves, were detained by the manumittor."§ Sometimes they obtained only the inferior liberty, being called dedititii: such were slaves
St. George Tucker’s VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
libertini = freeman = State or civil citizen ONLY
Latins = denizen = naturalized citizen
dedititii = slave
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That power, with regard to persons born in the US, had previously been left to the States, with a citizen of a State automatically considered a citizen of the United States.
YES! Someone else knows the States were the ones with that authority. :-) A citizen of a State was considered a citizen of these United States, or a collective State citizen.
A citizen of the United States, or 'US citizen' is a federal citizen.
§ 1218. The inhabitants enjoy all their civil, religious, and political rights. They live substantially under the same laws, as at the time of the cession, such changes only having been made, as have been devised, and sought by themselves. They are not indeed citizens of any state, entitled to the privileges of such; but they are citizens of the United States. They have no immediate representatives in congress.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
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Taney arrogated to the Court not only the right to decide who was a citizen as of 1857, but who could EVER be a citizen. This rather breathtaking assumption of power to the federal government is amazing in those who theoretically supported states’ rights.
Taney only pointed to the opportunity, it was the US Court that took it. Something they had no right to do.
However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial, as well as the other departments, hold their delegated trusts. On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1212--22