Dred Scott v. Sandford was a landmark Supreme Court case in 1857 that had significant implications for the institution of slavery in Georgia and the wider South. The decision denied Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man, his freedom, ruling that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could never be U.S. citizens. This decision reinforced the idea of African Americans as property and further entrenched the institution of slavery. It fueled tensions between pro-slavery and anti-slavery states, ultimately contributing to the start of the American Civil War.
