Dred Scott

Refers to Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that Black people—whether enslaved or free—could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked the power to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The ruling is invoked as a landmark example of judicial entrenchment of racial hierarchy and citizenship exclusion, later repudiated by the 14th Amendment.

Claims that use this term

• Corporate personhood doctrine persists despite Dred Scott and Lochner being disavowed
• Dred Scott declared Blackness itself a bar to US citizenship, not just enslavement.
• Dred Scott dissents argued birthright citizenship, prefiguring the 14th Amendment.
• Dred Scott deepened rather than settled the citizenship debate
• Ireland’s legal erasure of Catholics anticipated the Dred Scott doctrine.