Why is Justice Taney's argument ineffective?
Read the passage from the opinion of the court in Dred
Scott v. Sandford, written by Justice Taney.
He uses the freedom of African Americans as evidence.
He uses a previous status of African Americans as
evidence.
He uses the dissenting argument of the court as
evidence
He uses the ruling of the previous court as evidence.
The question then arises, whether the provisions of the
Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and
privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled,
embraced the negro African race, at that time in this
country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had
then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and
to put it in the power of a single State to make him a
citizen of the United States, and endue him with the full
rights of citizenship in every other State without their
consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act
upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws
of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and
immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in
every other State, and in its own courts?
The court thinks the affirmative of these propositions