Dred Scott dissents argued birthright citizenship, prefiguring the 14th Amendment.

Evidence

But the decision was not unanimous. Associate Justices Benjamin Curtis and John McLean issued written dissents arguing that free Black Americans could be citizens of the United States. Their reasoning echoed that which had been promoted for decades by Black Americans and endorsed by some white abolitionists and even by Republican lawmakers who did not oppose enslavement but did aim to curb its expansion westward. Justice McLean affirmed that all those born in the United States were citizens by birth: “Being born under our Constitution and laws, no naturalization is required, as one of foreign birth, to make him a citizen.” When it came to the Constitution and anti-Blackness, McLean quipped, “This is more a matter of taste than of law.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 718

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the ‘birthright citizenship’ principle as the dissent’s position, distinct from Taney’s originalist exclusion — a clear conceptual contrast relevant to the reader’s taxonomy.
• SEED: Essay angle: how the minority opinion in Dred Scott — not the majority — became the constitutional baseline via the 14th Amendment, a case study in losing arguments becoming winning law.