Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America

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-sponsored maltreatment that destroyed lives, suppressed freedom, and scarred our culture.

Dred Scott's Revenge is the story of America's long struggle to provide a new context?one in which "All men are created equal," and government really treats them so.