Mitch Epner | 06-21-26

Jake Novak and former federal prosecutor Mitch Epner examine the Dred Scott decision as a pivotal, albeit disastrous, turning point in American history. The conversation highlights the 1857 Supreme Court ruling not only for its profound immorality but also for its flawed legal logic, which stripped Black Americans of their humanity and effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise. By declaring that enslaved people were mere property and could never attain citizenship, the Court guaranteed the inevitability of the Civil War and alienated the growing abolitionist movement.