Monte wrote:
Ahhh, DFK. Your interpersonal skills are still so very genteel.
Wiki wrote:
Dred Scott v. Sandford,[1] 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), commonly referred to as The Dred Scott Decision, was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants[2]—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.[3] It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney..
The 14th Amendment was a direct response to this act of the Supreme Court. It established, constitutionally, the equality of all people, and set into the constitution what was already the norm - that citizenship in the United States was conferred at birth. Not just for white people but for all people.
So, who is the dumbass here? Dred Scott, as mentioned by me, has nothing to do with states right. I mentioned as a side note regarding the 14th Amendment.
I'm not sure who the dumbass is, maybe whoever you're reading on DailyKOS. I know it isn't me that's the dumbass, because I've actually read a book.
See, instead of reading a summary on Wikipedia, you might decide to actually look at the decision, or read a book. Unfortunately, that would require literacy.
However, just in case anybody else in the world reads what you wrote and actually believes the states were the ones oppressing Scott, let's look at some of the majority opinion. All emphasis mine:
Chief Justice of the FEDERAL Supreme Court Taney wrote:
The declaration is in the form usually adopted in that State to try questions of this description, and contains the averment necessary to give the court jurisdiction; that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York. The defendant pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court, that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, as alleged in his declaration, being a negro of African descent, whose ancestors were of pure African blood, and who were brought into this country and sold as slaves.
Chief Justice Taney wrote:
And, if the plea and demurrer, and judgment of the court below upon it, are before us upon this record, the question to be decided is, whether the facts stated in the plea are sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States
[...]
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? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution.
Chief Justice Taney wrote:
In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the [60 U.S. 393, 406] rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.
Or, in other words, for the literate: If, say, Illinois makes you free you still aren't free under the Constitution of the FEDERAL government.
Scott was trying to claim citizenship because he'd been given it by Missouri, which is a STATE. The defendant, his owner, was claiming he did not have standing in FEDERAL court because he didn't have FEDERAL rights.
The STATE of Missouri set Dred Scott free, and the UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT returned he and his family to servitude.
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