Page:A legal review of the case of Dred Scott, as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.djvu/47

 case of a slave held in Illinois only one month, with the intention of being returned to Missouri; and to that of a slave taken by an officer in the army of the United States, for a temporary residence, to a military post in such Territory. Julia v. McKinney, 3 Missouri, 270; Rachael v. Walker, 4 Missouri, 350. But in 1852, in a suit brought by this plaintiff, Dred Scott, to try his right to freedom, two judges, forming a majority of the court, overruled these decisions, in an opinion in which, admitting the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise Act, and the perfect freedom conferred upon the plaintiff by the laws governing the State and Territory in which he had resided, they refused to give any effect to those laws, because of the spirit which had lately prevailed in the free States in relation to the institution of slavery; but Mr. Justice Gamble, the most distinguished member of the court, delivered a very able dissenting opinion. Scott v. Emerson, 15 Missouri, 476. For the convenience of our readers, many of whom may not have access to that volume of reports, we give in a note at the end of this article a statement of the case, and all the important parts of each opinion, in the very words of the judges. The decision has since been twice affirmed without any renewed dissent. Calvert v. Steamboat Timoleon, 15 Missouri, 597; Sylvia v. Kirby, 17 Missouri, 434. But the new doctrine does not seem to be treated as of universal application; for in a later case concerning such rights acquired in Canada, the same judge who delivered the opinion in Dred Scott's case said: "When any of the negro race, who were reduced to slavery, acquired their freedom under the laws of the country in which they lived, we are aware of no law by which they, except for crime, can be again reduced to slavery." Charlotte v. Chouteau, 21 Missouri, 597. This last case was decided less than two years ago, and does not appear to have been brought to the notice of the supreme court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott, probably because it was not reported when that case was argued. The passage just cited would seem to accord better with the doctrine which we have attempted to maintain, and which was originally established by the supreme court of Missouri, than with the law laid down by that court in the intermediate decisions. But as that court has not expressed any intention to overrule or revise those decisions, the present law of Missouri on this question, so far as it can be ascertained from the decisions of its supreme court, would seem to refuse to recognize rights of freedom acquired by a residence in any