Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Franklin
"Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court held that the US Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for black people, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them."
Sure, there were some free blacks, but they couldn't be citizens, and in the south, they were only counted as 3/5ths of a human being for Representation purposes, giving the south more power.
I believe government can only exist, morally, if all people can vote, since people give government the right to exist. It's a shame they never made Susan B Anthony a national holiday, although Florida recognizes it as one.
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"During the 1787 Philadelphia convention a compromise was proposed between northern states which only wanted to count free blacks in congressional apportionment (ignoring slave populations), and slave states which wanted full counting of the slave population. The compromise counted slave populations on the ratio of three-fifths, while
free blacks were not subject to the compromise and counted as one full citizen for representation.[17] Due to this compromise Southern states could count three-fifths of their slave populations toward the state populations for purposes of Congressional apportionment and the electoral college. This additional counting of the slave population resulted in those states having political power in excess of the white voting population. The South dominated the national government and the presidency for years. Congress adopted legislation that favored slaveholders, such as permitting slavery in territories as the nation began to expand to the West. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was strengthened by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850, requiring even the governments and residents of free states to enforce the capture and return of fugitive slaves. Famous fugitives such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth gained the support of white abolitionists to purchase their freedom, to avoid being captured and returned to the South and slavery.[15]:84–85 In 1857, the ruling of Dred Scott v. Sandford effectively denied citizenship to black people of all statuses.[15]:85"
From:
Free Negro - Wikipedia
"This Supreme Court decision attempted to settle the legal status of slaves in free territories to avert a civil war, but it provoked one instead. Dred Scott, who was born a slave in Missouri, traveled with his master to the free territory of Illinois. As a result, Scott later sued his master for freedom, which the lower courts usually granted. However, when the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, it ruled that Scott would remain a slave because as such he was not a citizen and could not legally sue in the federal courts. Moreover, in the words of Chief Justice Roger Taney, black people free or slave could never become U. S. citizens and they “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
The dissenting justices pointed out that in some states people of color were already considered citizens when the Constitution was ratified In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision by granting citizenship to all those born in the United States, regardless of color."
From:
Dred Scott v. Sanford | Equality and the 14th Amendment | Constitution USA | PBS