Taney made twenty-one allusions in this opinion to the inferiority of blacks as an “inferior class of beings,” an “unfortunate race,” “degraded race,” “unhappy race,” and “far below [whites] in the scale of created beings.” Thus an important component of Taney’s logic was that black inferiority was the cause of their enslaved status and of the legal necessity of enforcing their bondage and preventing their social intercourse with their white superiors.
