For more than a century they had been regarded as beings of an inferior order, altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either socially or politically — so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.
Original passage & context
"They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."
The most quoted sentence in the history of the Court. Read it precisely: Taney is stating what he claims the framing generation believed, not announcing his own moral view. But he is not describing it in passing — he uses that claimed 1787 consensus as the ground for holding that people of African descent were never included in the word "citizen" and so cannot sue in a federal court. The decision went further: it struck down the Missouri Compromise and held that Congress could not bar slavery from any territory.
Read it in the original — Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) ↗