The Supreme Court ruled (7-2) that slaves are not citizens, but are the property of their masters and therefore being in a free state did not make Dred Scott a free man. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney also ruled that Congress could not declare certain territories free of slavery since it deprived slave-owning citizens of their property. This part of the decision made the Missouri Compromise invalid in the eyes of the Court.
To see the entire Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.
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