The chief justice’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) asserted in a 7–2 decision that Blacks, including free Blacks, had never been considered citizens of the United States. Not in the founding documents. Not in the initial discussions and laws of Congress such as the 1790 Naturalization Act or the 1792 Militia Acts. Nor by the attorney general and the secretary of state, who refused to issue passports to Blacks because they “were not citizens of the United States.”
