Analysis Of Roger Taney Determine The Legal Status Of Slaves, 1857

In the document, “Chief Justice Roger Taney Determines the Legal Status of Slaves, 1857,” Roger Taney raises the debate on whether or not black people should be considered as fellow citizens of the United States and be provided with the rights and privileges that other citizens of the United States are entitled to. Taney specifically discusses about the right to stand in court in this document and judges whether or not a black person is allowed to sue someone. Taney declares that all citizens of the United States are granted the right to stand in court, but black people aren’t as they aren’t citizens of the United States and never have been. Taney bases this judgment on the idea that black people are an inferior race that come from a long history of slavery and are descendents of slaves that were sold to the United States long ago. Taney believes that

The common opinion for most people for over a century was that black people are “unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations,” so Taney interprets that the constitution never intended to include black people as fellow citizens. Taney supports his argument by stating that “there are two clauses of the Constitution which point directly to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.” As black people never had any part in the making of the constitution and weren’t treated as fellow humans when the constitution was made, Taney concludes that the rights of the constitution don’t apply to black people and therefore black people don’t have rights. Taney’s conclusion indicates that black people are only slaves and property and can’t be regarded as