Dred Scot, Armed Blacks & Other Citizens---Then And Now

The famous/infamous Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott, Plaintiff in error v. John F. A. Sanford; 60 US 393 L. Ed. 961; December, 1856 Term; Supreme Court of The United States of America) is now recognized to have been morally wrong as it declared that a Black slave was property and not a citizen-person.

However, many (If not most) forget that that decision was the "law of the land" and that it took the bloodiest war we ever fought (Where almost every battle was a Tarawa or "Pork Chop Hill" or Iwo Jima) and Constitutional Amendments to overturn.

There were many (Convoluted as usual) legal arguments to support the Court's decision. There was, in fact, at least one practical reason for the Court's decision: That to rule otherwise would give Blacks the right to "carry arms where ever they went"---Including across State lines (Please see the quote below).

That view clearly demonstrates what the Supreme Court thought about the rights of citizens to bear arms, while traveling about the nation, at that time. Any study of history will clearly show that citizens then commonly kept such weapons concealed and that practice was considered normal and without offense to other citizens or to the Law.

It appears that time and the tyranny of legislative bodies and the courts have deprived US citizens of a right once considered normal and without fault.

." For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State." (Emphasis added)

(A White "racist" might point out the grossly disproportional, criminal, misuse of firearms by Blacks.)