The court’s decision dealt a blow to the Black American claim to citizenship: Taney ruled that Scott had no right to sue because as an enslaved person, he was not a citizen. Taney then went a step further. No Black American was intended to be a citizen of the United States by the framers. It was a powerful repudiation of the interpretation of the Constitution long promoted by Black activists. The nation’s highest court declared that Blackness rendered them unequivocally noncitizens.28
