In 1846, Dred Scott, a man enslaved to an army surgeon, declared he had lived long enough on free soil to make him a free man and sued the federal government to be rid of his status as a slave. After over 10 years of court trials and appeals, a March 2, 1857, ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court came down 7-2 against Mr. Scott. The Dred Scott Decision ruled:
“that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the territories.
“All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court’s majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.
“The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been ‘regarded as beings of an inferior order’ with ‘no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'” Digital History
Good Lord. July 9 is the birthday of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Amendment that at last granted African Americans rights as citizens.
What rights? Back in the day, the Bill of Rights included the following: freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, protection for those accused of crimes.
In 2012, the USCIA Citizenship and Immigration Services website lists the rights of citizenship as:
*Freedom to express yourself.
*Freedom to worship as you wish.
*Right to a prompt, fair trial by jury.
*Right to vote in elections for public officials.
*Right to apply for federal employment requiring U.S. citizenship.
*Right to run for elected office.
If you’re not a citizen yet? Click here for a Rights of Non-Citizens Study Guide at the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Library. And while we’re on the subject, if we’re going to be “bound to respect” one another’s rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a good place to start.
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