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Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), known as the "Dred Scott Case" or the "Dred Scott Decision", was a lawsuit decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1857 that ruled that people of African descent, whether or not they were slaves, could never be citizens of the United States, and that Congress had no authority to create and administer territories. The decision for the court was written by Chief Justice Roger Taney.

The decision sided with border ruffians in the Bleeding Kansas dispute who were afraid a free Kansas would be a haven for runaway slaves from slave state Missouri. It enraged abolitionists. The polarization of the slavery debate is considered one of many factors leading to the American Civil War.

The parts of this decision dealing with the citizenship and rights of African-Americans were explicitly overturned by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. On the other hand, the parts of the decision declaring territories unconstitutional were almost immediately ignored, as more territories were added in 1861, only four years after the decision.