The essential character of the transaction impressed itself upon the very form of the judgment, if indeed it may be called at all by that name.

Chief-Justice Taney read the opinion of the court.
Justices Nelson, Wayne, Daniel, Grier, Catron, and Campbell each read a separate and individual opinion, agreeing with the Chief-Justice on some points, and omitting or disagreeing on others, or arriving at the same result by different reasoning, and in the same manner differing one from another.

The two remaining associate justices, McLean and Curtis, read emphatic dissenting opinions.

Thus the collective utterance of the bench resembled the speeches of a town meeting rather than the decision of a court, and employed 240 printed pages of learned legal disquisition to order the simple dismissal of a suit.

The opinion read by Chief-Justice Taney was long and elaborate, and the following were among its leading conclusions: That the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States do not include nor refer to negroes otherwise than as property; that they cannot become citizens of the United States nor sue in the Federal courts.