Dred Scott decision, formally Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise (1820), which had declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30?, was unconstitutional. The decision added fuel to the sectional controversy and pushed the country closer to civil war.
Poster Comment:
This is the landmark case that SCOTUS nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson claimed she could not recall the basis of, despite history recording the Dred Scott decision, which in 1857 said that a Black person whose ancestors had been slaves could not be an American citizen, as the worst mistake ever by the Supreme Court!