the sake of
learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
territory, upon herself and her children--it might become needful to
advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the
Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of 36 deg.
30' in the Louisiana purchase.

"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that advance;
for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
that the _status_ of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was dependent, not
upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and that
the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in
set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
Illinois and Minnesota, _and this effect is to be ascertained by
reference to the laws of Missouri_.' Five of the Justices, then (if no
more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the plaintiff's
rights."]

[Footnote 35:--"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
traffic in it, _like an ordinary article of merchandise and property_,
was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
might desire it, for twenty years."--_Ch. J. Taney_, 19 _How. U.S.R_.,
p. 451. _Vide_ language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "_merchandise_."]

[Footnote 36:--Not only was the right of property _not_ intended to be
"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
followin