In the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court ruled that all blacks (whether slave or free) were not citizens and therefore had no right to sue in federal court. What's more, the federal government had no right to ban slavery. Dred Scott was not set aside until after the Civil War. So much for the sacrosanct nature of precedent! Dred Scott was bad law when made, and it remained bad law until the instant it was struck down.We shouldn't be too hard on the justices in 1857, however. We passed a similar law this century which ...