Page:A legal review of the case of Dred Scott, as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.djvu/61

 they are made, and by enforcing them here, we, contrary to all principle, give them an extra-territorial effect."

"There is no ground to presume or to impute any volition to Dr. Emerson, that his slave should have his freedom. He was ordered by superior authority to the posts where his slave was detained in servitude, and in obedience to that authority, he repaired to them with his servant, as he very naturally supposed he had a right to do. To construe this into an assent to his slave's freedom would be doing violence to his acts. Nothing but a persuasion, that it is a duty to enforce the foreign law as though it was one of our own, could ever induce a court to put such a construction on his conduct."

"An attempt has been made to show that the comity extended to the laws of other States is a matter of discretion, to be determined by the courts of that State in which the laws are proposed to be enforced. If it is a matter of discretion, that discretion must be controlled by circumstances. Times now are not as they were when the former decisions on this subject were made. Since then not only individuals but States have been possessed with a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures whose inevitable consequence must be the overthrow and destruction of our government. Under such circumstances it does not behoove the State of Missouri to show the least countenance to any measure which might gratify this spirit. She is willing to assume her full responsibility for the existence of slavery within her limits, nor does she seek to share or divide it with others. Although we may, for our own sakes, regret that the avarice and hardheartedness of the progenitors of those who are now so sensitive on the subject ever introduced the institution among us, yet we will not go to them to learn law, morality, or religion, on the subject." 15 Missouri, 583–587.

Mr. Justice Gamble dissented for the following reasons: "In every slaveholding State in the Union, the subject of emancipation is regulated by statute, and the forms are prescribed in which it shall be effected. Whenever the forms, required by the laws of the State in which the master and slave are resident, are complied with, the emancipation is complete, and the slave is free. If the right of the person thus emancipated is subsequently drawn in question in another State, it will be ascertained and determined by the law of the State in which he and his former master resided; and when it appears that such law has been complied with, the right to freedom will be fully sustained in the courts of all the slaveholding States, although the act of emancipation may not be in the form required by the laws of the State in which the court is sitting.

"In all such cases, courts continually administer the law of the country where the right was acquired; and when that law becomes known to the court, it is just as much a matter of course to decide the rights of the parties according to its requirements, as it is to settle the title of real estate, situate in our State, according to our own laws.

"We, here, are the citizens of one nation, composed of many different States which are all equal, and are each and all entitled to manage their own domestic interests and institutions by their own municipal law. except so far as the Constitution of the United States interferes with that power. The perfect equality of the different States lies at the foundation of the Union. As the institution of slavery in the States is one over which the Constitution of the United States gives no power to the general government, it is left to be adopted or rejected by the several States, as they think best. Nor can any one State, nor any number of States, claim the right to interfere with any other State, upon the question of admitting or excluding this institution. It must be borne in mind, that this freedom