“In his decision Taney endeavored to provide a final settlement to the question of slavery.” The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen?”
This quote directly emulates the issue that the supreme court was dealing with in this case. Should slaves ever have rights, privileges or even citizenship?Based on the society in which this case had taken place the decision was clear, slaves were not to be given any rights let alone citizenship.This largely slave holding society would not let go of their slaves let alone willfully let slaves roam around as free men. Dred Scott would inevitably be forced to go back to his former owner. This case reaffirmed that slaves could never become citizens and that the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional which lead to somewhat of a divide amount the states. This verdict was reached primarily do to the fact that slaves will always be slaves no matter if they are in a free or slave state.Not only were slaves unable to hold any rights but even their descendants were unable to hold any rights. Many people saw slaves as subhuman and were of a different class when compared to the colonists and it did not even matter if they were set free by their owners under no circumstances were slaves to gain any rights. This was mainly to keep them in the institution that was slavery. If slaves began walking around the streets freely it would give other slaves hope for freedom and quite possibly they could try to escape to free states and say that they were let free by their master.
