The correct answer is : The men who wrote the Constitution understood that enslaved persons would not be citizens. Taney said that the common people considered Africans "so inferior" to the "white race" and the white man had no obligation to respect them. In the north where slavery was already abolished, they were forbidden to enlist in the state guard, had no educational opportunities and interracial marriages were forbidden. Some federal laws continued to make a difference between "citizens" and "people of color," meaning that Africans were not considered citizens.