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> My contention about the Scott decision being legally and
> factually wrong is not based on its ruling with regard to
> whether slavery is legal, but its power grab in claiming
> who had ever been or could ever be a citizen.

And yet, the dissenters relied for their argument that a slave, removed from the jurisdiction of his slavery, became free on decisions of **European** courts, not American law.

Some folks around here get mighty upset when some current justices do things like that.

Perhaps we can agree on this, the reason Scott was a crappy, abominable decision is because in it the court stuck itself squarely in the middle of a question that was purposely constitutionally vague and politically charged. (Sounds like some other decisions one could name...)

Here’s a couple good articles about a book, “Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil” that you may find interesting:
http://hnn.us/articles/30419.html
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12085

My objection to the Court's decision is not over whether Scott should have been declared free. That was perhaps decided according to the (really crappy) law of the time. And I agree that decisions of European courts, with the exception of precedents from common law prior to our independence, are not relevant.

My objection is to the majority's factually incorrect claim that blacks were not citizens of the US in 1784 and therefore could never become citizens. This was not in contention before the Court, but it chose to rule on the issue anyway. The first statement, that blacks were not citizens of the US in 1784, is just untrue. The second statement, based on the first, is therefore equally untrue.

This was all thrashed out at the time, and spelled out very plainly in Justice Curtis' dissent, which was just ignored by Taney and the majority.

it may safely be said that the citizens of the several States were citizens of the United States under the Confederation. To determine whether any free persons, descended from Africans held in slavery, were citizens of the United States under the Confederation, and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such persons were citizens of either of the States under the Confederation, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free nativeborn inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina (!), though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens.

Also from Curtis’ dissent:

The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in the case of the State v. Manuel, (4 Dev. and Bat., 20,) has declared the law of that State on this subject, in terms which I believe to be as sound law in the other States I have enumerated, as it was in North Carolina.

‘According to the laws of this State,’ says Judge Gaston, in delivering the opinion of the court, ‘all human beings within it, who are not slaves, fall within one of two classes. Whatever distinctions may have existed in the Roman laws between citizens and free inhabitants, they are unknown to our institutions. Before our Revolution, all free persons born within the dominions of the King of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native born British subjectsthose born out of his allegiance were aliens. Slavery did not exist in England, but it did in the British colonies. Slaves were not in legal parlance persons, but property. The moment the incapacity, the disqualification of slavery, was removed, they became persons, and were then either British subjects, or not British subjects, according as they were or were not born within the allegiance of the British King. Upon the Revolution, no other change took place in the laws of North Carolina than was consequent on the transition from a colony dependent on a European King, to a free and sovereign State. Slaves remained slaves. British subjects in North Carolina became North Carolina freemen. Foreigners, until made members of the State, remained aliens. Slaves, manumitted here, became freemen, and therefore, if born within North Carolina, are citizens of North Carolina, and all free persons born within the State are born citizens of the State. The Constitution extended the elective franchise to every freeman who had arrived at the age of twentyone, and paid a public tax; and it is a matter of universal notoriety, that, under it, free persons, without regard to color, claimed and exercised the franchise, until it was taken from free men of color a few years since by our amended Constitution.’