By this he was referring to the Dred Scott decision, which would be issued just two days after his inauguration by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, seventy-nine, who loved the South and feared for the survival of Southern civilization. In his decision, Taney ruled that Blacks could not be citizens, that slaves were property that could be moved at will, and, further, that Congress could not bar slavery from any territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had already repealed the Missouri Compromise, but Taney’s ruling went a step further and declared that it had been unconstitutional in the first place.
