Dred Scott Quotes

14 quotes from 13 authors

The Dred Scott decision still echoes in debates about liberty and justice. These fourteen excerpts, drawn from thirteen scholars, journalists, and activists, distill the case’s legal shockwaves and its lasting moral questions, offering a concise window into a pivotal moment of American history.

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We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and…

Abraham Lincoln

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In the scale of American blunders - from the Dred Scott decision to the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s to the tragedy…

Bret Stephens

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Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of…

Abraham Lincoln

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For black Americans, we know that gun control... sprouts from racist soil - be it after the or during the infamous Dred…

Niger Innis

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What Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do…

Roger B. Taney

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“We may think we’ve given cats and dogs all sorts of rights, he says, but we can still buy, sell, and declaw…

David Grimm

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“What actually occurred was that the Supreme Court issued its abominable opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857, asserting that slaves…

John W. Dean

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“In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney handed down the Dred Scott decision upholding and extending slavery. Taney’s opinion was, it is…

Charles Krauthammer

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Activist Supreme Courts are not new. The Dred Scott decision in 1856, imposing slavery in free territories; the Plessy decision in 1896,…

Mark Levin

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“Slaves taken to France from the colonies brought lawsuits against their masters and won their freedom. (Compare this with the infamous Dred…

Tom Reiss

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In one point of view, we, the abolitionists and colored people, should meet [the Dred Scott] decision, unlooked for and monstrous as…

Frederick Douglass

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“F.S. Nariman rightly found some similarity between the decision of the ADM Jabalpur and that of Dred Scott, rendered more than a…

Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly

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“Hitler and Mussolini were indeed authoritarians, but it doesn’t follow that authoritarianism equals fascism or Nazism. Lenin and Stalin were authoritarian, but…

Dinesh D'Souza

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“Nazi persecution didn’t limit itself to race. Religion, national origin, alternative lifestyles, persons with disabilities—all were targets. How would you characterize the…

Ronald H. Balson

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