Trump v. Barbara · ¶201

This Court disagreed. It held that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri—and therefore could not sue as a citizen—because of his race. According to the Court, blacks could not be citizens because they were “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.” 19 How., at 404–405. As a result, the Court said, blacks were denied the basic privileges of citizenship—including the right to “keep and carry arms wherever they went” and to exercise the “full liberty of speech in public and in private.” Id., at 417. They could not sue in federal court as state “citizens.” Ibid.

slip opinion, revised 7/01/26
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