CHAPTER III. CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES. SECTION 1. WHO ARE CITIZENS. DRED SCOTT, Plaintiff in Error, v. JOHN F. A. SANDFORD. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1857. This case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri. [In 1834, Dred Scott, a negro slave belonging to Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the United States army, was taken by his master from Missouri to Rock Island, Illinois, where slavery was prohibited by statute. Thence he was taken,. in 1836, to Fort Snelling, in the territory of upper Louisiana. This post was situated on the west bank of the Mississippi, north of latitude 36° 30′, and north of Missouri, and hence within the territory in which slavery had been forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. In 1836, with the consent of their master, Dred and Harriet were married. In 1838, Dr. Emerson returned with his slaves to Missouri. In 1847, Dred brought suit in the Missouri circuit court to recover his freedom, having discovered that according to previous decisions of Missouri courts, residence in free territory conferred freedom. Judgment was rendered in his favor, but was reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court. Before the commencement of the present suit, Dred and his wife and two children were sold to Sandford, a citizen of New York. Scott having brought suit in trespass for assault and battery against Sandford in the Federal Circuit Court of Missouri, Sandford pleaded in abatement to the jurisdiction of the court that this could not be a suit between citizens of different States, because Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, but "a negro of pure African descent; his ancestors were of pure African blood and were brought into this country and sold as negro slaves." To this Scott demurred and the demurrer was sustained. The de fendant then pleaded in bar to the action that the plaintiff was his negro slave, and that he had only gently laid hands on him to restrain him, as he had a right to do. The judge instructed the jury that, "upon the facts in this case, the law is with the defendant." The plaintiff excepted to this instruction, and upon his exceptions the case was taken to the United States Supreme Court.] MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the court.1 There are two leading questions presented by the record: 1. Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And 2. If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not? . . It We Before we speak of the pleas in bar, it will be proper to dispose of the questions which have arisen on the plea in abatement. That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the United States, for the reasons therein stated. is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us. think they [the plea and the judgment of the court upon it] are before us and it becomes, therefore, our duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States. The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution. . . . And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, this court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves. The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and con 1 For the distinction between the opinion of the court and the judg ment of the court, see the note post, 295. duct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the "sovereign people," and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea of abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they 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 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. . . In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all his rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can, by naturalizing an alien, invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character. It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person, or description of persons, who are not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it. The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterward be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made. free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endow him with. the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts? The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts. It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards, by birthright or otherwise, become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded. It was the union of those who were at that time members of distinct and separate political communities into one political family, whose power, for certain specified purposes, was to extend over the whole territory of the United States. And it gave to each citizen rights and privileges outside of his State which he did not before possess, and placed him in every other State upon a perfect equality with its own citizens as to rights of person and rights of property; it made him a citizen of the United States. It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted. And in order to do this, we must recur to the Governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignties, and took their places in the family of independent nations. We must inquire who, at that time, were recognized as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms. In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.1 1 These statements of the Chief Justice as to the legal status of free negroes in the several States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution were not well founded, as was pointed out by Mr. Justice Curtis in his dissenting opinion. In New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, as well as in the slave-holding State of North Carolina, all free native-born inhabitants, even though descended |