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On this day in history March 6, 1857 Dred Scott Recall the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, handed down by the then-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — the staunch Democrat Roger Taney, bold print for emphasis supplied: We think […] that [black people] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time [of the Constitution’s framing] considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them. — Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. at 404–05.