Sorry for the repitition WT, we posted within a minute or so of each other.
Not a problem. Perhaps we both need to get a life.
During my most recent reading of the Dred Scott decision, I am struck by the short-shrift given to the fact that there were free blacks living in various states at the time of our nation's founding.
Taney et al. simply suggested that everybody considered them just slaves without masters. By so doing, Taney avoids the unpleasant realization that the only thing which separates a "citizen of the United States" who happens to be black and a slave is whatever economic value had to be provided in order to buy freedom for a slave.
The Dred Scott decision could as easily have found Dred Scott to be a free citizen of the United States and could have ruled that his prior owner should have recourse to civil proceedings to recover the lost economic value from the slave seller who sold him a defective product.