The Engel v. Vitale Decision:
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.

On June 19, 1862, Congress enacted a measure prohibiting slavery in United States territories, defying the Dred Scott decision which said Congress was powerless to regulate slavery without a constitutional amendment.  On January 1, 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation proclamation, which permitted  3,120,000 slaves to fight in the Civil War.  The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution later abolished slavery, in 1865, and made the Dred Scott decision no longer applicable.

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