People of African descent that are slaves or were slaves and subsequently freed, along with their descendants, cannot be United States citizens. Consequently, they cannot sue in federal court. Slavery in the United States cannot be prohibited in U.S. territories before they are admitted to the Union as doing so would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. After the Civil War, this decision was voided by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Decided March 6, 1857 (argued 1856). Opinion of the Court: Roger B. Taney → go there Dissenting: McLean, Curtis. Applied: the Fifth Amendment → go there Topic: Discrimination based on race and ethnicity. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held that the United States Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The decision is widely considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history and is broadly denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, and poor legal reasoning. It de facto nationalized slavery, and thus played a crucial role in the events that led to the American Civil War four years later. Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz said that it "stands first in any list of the worst Supreme Court decisions." Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes called it the Court's "greatest self-inflicted wound". Wiki link