ets fully and decides every point which was
made in the argument of the case by the counsel on either side of it.
Nothing belonging to the case has been left undecided, nor has any
point been discussed and decided which was not called for by the
record, or which was not necessary for the judicial disposition of it,
in the way that it has been done, by more than a majority of the
court.

In doing this, the court neither sought nor made the case. It was
brought to us in the course of that administration of the laws which
Congress has enacted, for the review of cases from the Circuit Courts
by the Supreme Court.

In our action upon it, we have only discharged our duty as a distinct
and efficient department of the Government, as the framers of the
Constitution meant the judiciary to be, and as the States of the Union
and the people of those States intended it should be, when they
ratified the Constitution of the United States.

The case involves private rights of value, and constitutional
principles of the highest importance, about which there had become
such a difference of opinion, that the peace and harmony of the
country required the settlement of them by judicial decision.

It would certainly be a subject of regret, that the conclusions of the
court have not been assented to by all of its members, if I did not
know from its history and my own experience how rarely it has happened
that the judges have been unanimous upon constitutional questions of
moment, and if our decision in this case had not been made by as large
a majority of them as has been usually had on constitutional questions
of importance.

Two of the judges, Mr. Justices McLean and Curtis, dissent from the
opinion of the court. A third, Mr. Justice Nelson, gives a separate
opinion upon a single point in the case, with which I concur, assuming
that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction; but he abstains altogether
from expressing any opinion upon the eighth section of the act of
1820, known commonly as the Missouri Compromise law, and six of us
declare that it was unconstitutional.

But it has been assumed, that this court has acted extra-judicially in
giving an opinion upon the eighth section of the act of 1820, because,
as it has decided that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the
case, this court had no jurisdiction to examine the case upon its
merits.

But the error of such an assertion has arisen in part from a
misapprehension of what has b