Final answer:
The Supreme Court's Dred Scott ruling stated that Congress lacked the power to ban slavery, that slaves were property not citizens, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The option that was not part of the ruling is that Congress had the power to ban slavery.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to the question is c) Congress had the power to ban slavery. This was NOT part of the Supreme Court's ruling in the landmark Dred Scott case of 1857. Through this decision, the Court ruled that slaves were property, not citizens; that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional; and that Congress did not have the power to ban slavery in the territories.
In the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the Supreme Court stated that enslaved individuals like Dred Scott, as well as all people of African descent, were not U.S. citizens and therefore did not have the standing to sue in federal court. The Court also declared that the Missouri Compromise, which attempted to limit the spread of slavery into certain U.S. territories, was unconstitutional. This decision asserted that Congress had no authority to bar slavery in the territories, furthering the controversy leading up to the Civil War.