Racial hatred is one of the ugliest of human emotions. And the
United States not only once condoned it, it also mandated
it―wove it right into the fabric of American jurisprudence.
Federal and state governments legally suspended the free will of
blacks for 150 years and then denied blacks equal protection of
the law for another 150. How did such crimes happen in America?
How were the laws of the land, even the Constitution itself,
twisted into repressive and oppressive legislation that denied
people their inalienable rights? Taking the Dred Scott case of
1957 as his shocking center, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano tells
the story of how it happened and, through it, builds a damning
case against American statesmen from Lincoln to Wilson, from FDR
to JFK. Born a slave in Virginia, Dred Scott sued for freedom
based on the fact that he had lived in states and territories
where slavery was illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against
Scott, denied citizenship to blacks, and spawned more than a
century of government-sp