06/11/2026
In March 1857, the Supreme Court decided Dred Scott v. Sandford. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Jacksonian Democrat nominated to the Court by President Andrew Jackson.
According to Taney, Dred Scott—an enslaved black man—had no standing to sue in federal court because he was not, and could never become, a citizen of the United States.
This conclusion rested on Taney’s unfounded and false claim that black people were not included in the Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal." Contrary to mountains of historical evidence, Taney simply asserted that black people "were never thought of or spoken of except as property."
A few months later, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech devoted almost entirely to Dred Scott. There he offered a devastating critique of Taney’s opinion, rejected Taney’s mischaracterization of the Founders, and defended the universal principles of natural right enshrined in the Declaration.
Both documents—Dred Scott and Lincoln’s response—are included in the library at waypointsteaching.com, carefully prepared for serious study.
Below is a short excerpt from the Waypoints teacher tutorial on Lincoln’s speech.
TUTORIAL: LINCOLN AND THE DECLARATION
pp. 14–15
Lincoln now gives the philosophical heart of the speech. Roger Taney (and Stephen Douglas) asserted that the Declaration did not include black people because the Founders did not immediately make black people equal to white people in all respects. Lincoln says that argument proves nothing, because the Founders did not make all white people equal in all respects either.
The Founders did not mean all human beings were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They meant equality in “certain inalienable rights,” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Lincoln added: “This they said and this they meant.”
The Founders did not mean to say all were already enjoying equality, nor that they could immediately confer it. They meant “to declare the right,” so that enforcement might follow “as fast as circumstances should permit.” They meant to establish “a standard maxim for free society,” to be “constantly looked to, constantly labored for,” even if never perfectly attained.
The equality principle was placed in the Declaration “for future use,” as “a stumbling block” to those who might later turn a free people back toward despotism.
Lincoln’s argument:
• Equality is not sameness in all respects.
• It means equal individual natural rights.
• The Founders did not fully practice the principle, but declared it as a standard.
• The principle was meant to guide future political improvement.
• The Declaration remains politically alive.
This is what Waypoints helps teachers do: return students to the original documents and see how the great arguments over American liberty unfolded in the words of those who made them.
