Black people of African Descent were ruled to be sub-human, never worthy of the rights of full citizenship. And that ruling was supposed based in what Taney wrote was the original intention of the founders.
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney was also considered among the finest legal minds if not the the finest legal mind of that era.
The Dred Scott ruling caused the first and only resignation from the Supreme Court over principle. The Judge who resigned, Benjamin Robbins Curtis was also a fine legal reasoner. Justice Curtis was also the first Supreme Court Justice to have earned a law degree from a law school.
With Justice Scalia's remarks as reported, we now see that he, and likely other Justices at his level have come to realize that the courts and The Law (as code and process) are NEVER outside the sway of politics, and indeed that the selection of Judges properly considers politics!
In Dred Scott I believe slaves were ruled to be property. It makes no sense to extend rights to property.
This is true. Which just goes to show that brilliance is less than worthless when employed in a bad cause.
The Scott decision, as pointed out by the dissenters, ignores historical fact and obviously applicable legal principles to reach a predetermined decision.
As has been widely noted, in this it is much like the Roe v Wade decision.