tion to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own
laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision
that this court had not jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen
by the report of the case.

So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of
Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in
that character, his _status_, as free or slave, depended on the laws
of Missouri, and not of Illinois.

It has, however, been urged in the argument, that by the laws of
Missouri he was free on his return, and that this case, therefore,
cannot be governed by the case of Strader et al. _v._ Graham, where it
appeared, by the laws of Kentucky, that the plaintiffs continued to be
slaves on their return from Ohio. But whatever doubts or opinions may,
at one time, have been entertained upon this subject, we are
satisfied, upon a careful examination of all the cases decided in the
State courts of Missouri referred to, that it is now firmly settled by
the decisions of the highest court in the State, that Scott and his
family upon their return were not free, but were, by the laws of
Missouri, the property of the defendant; and that the Circuit Court of
the United States had no jurisdiction, when, by the laws of the State,
the plaintiff was a slave, and not a citizen.

Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against
the defendant in the State court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of
himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence
upon which he relies in the case before the court. The case was
carried before the Supreme Court of the State; was fully argued there;
and that court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were
entitled to freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant; and
reversed the judgment of the inferior State court, which had given a
different decision. If the plaintiff supposed that this judgment of
the Supreme Court of the State was erroneous, and that this court had
jurisdiction to revise and reverse it, the only mode by which he could
legally bring it before this court was by writ of error directed to
the Supreme Court of the State, requiring it to transmit the record to
this court. If this had been done, it is too plain for argument that
the writ must have been dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this
court. The case of Strader and others _v._ Graham is directly in
point; and, indeed, indepe