nt on the record, this court is bound to reverse the
judgment, although the defendant has not pleaded in abatement to the
jurisdiction of the inferior court.

The cases of Jackson _v._ Ashton and of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, to
which we have referred in a previous part of this opinion, are directly
in point. In the last-mentioned case, Capron brought an action against
Van Noorden in a Circuit Court of the United States, without showing, by
the usual averments of citizenship, that the court had jurisdiction.
There was no plea in abatement put in, and the parties went to trial
upon the merits. The court gave judgment in favor of the defendant with
costs. The plaintiff thereupon brought his writ of error, and this court
reversed the judgment given in favor of the defendant, and remanded the
case with directions to dismiss it, because it did not appear by the
transcript that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction.

The case before us still more strongly imposes upon this court the duty
of examining whether the court below has not committed an error, in
taking jurisdiction and giving a judgment for costs in favor of the
defendant; for in Capron _v._ Van Noorden the judgment was reversed,
because it did _not appear_ that the parties were citizens of different
States. They might or might not be. But in this case it _does appear_
that the plaintiff was born a slave; and if the facts upon which he
relies have not made him free, then it appears affirmatively on the
record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against
Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the
court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The
suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit
Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be
reversed.

It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for
the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or
personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result
would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment,
would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment
which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn
into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some
future suit.

We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the
plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.

The cas