the discussions in the State courts have
relieved the subject of much of its difficulty. (12 B.M. Ky. R., 545;
Foster _v._ Foster, 10 Gratt. Va. R., 485; 4 Har. and McH. Md. R.,
295; Scott _v._ Emerson, 15 Misso., 576; 4 Rich. S.C.R., 186; 17
Misso., 434; 15 Misso., 596; 5 B.M., 173; 8 B.M., 540, 633; 9 B.M.,
565; 5 Leigh, 614; 1 Raud., 15; 18 Pick., 193.)

The result of these discussions is, that in general, the _status_, or
civil and political capacity of a person, is determined, in the first
instance, by the law of the domicil where he is born; that the legal
effect on persons, arising from the operation of the law of that
domicil, is not indelible, but that a new capacity or _status_ may be
acquired by a change of domicil. That questions of _status_ are
closely connected with considerations arising out of the social and
political organization of the State where they originate, and each
sovereign power must determine them within its own territories.

A large class of cases has been decided upon the second of the
propositions above stated, in the Southern and Western courts--cases
in which the law of the actual domicil was adjudged to have altered
the native condition and _status_ of the slave, although he had never
actually possessed the _status_ of freedom in that domicil. (Rankin
_v._ Lydia, 2 A.K.M.; Herny [Transcriber's Note: Harry] _v._ Decker,
Walk., 36; 4 Mart., 385; 1 Misso., 472; Hunter _v._ Fulcher, 1 Leigh
[Transcriber's Note: full citation as given elsewhere is 1 Leigh,
172].)

I do not impugn the authority of these cases. No evidence is found in
the record to establish the existence of a domicil acquired by the
master and slave, either in Illinois or Minnesota. The master is
described as an officer of the army, who was transferred from one
station to another, along the Western frontier, in the line of his
duty, and who, after performing the usual tours of service, returned
to Missouri; these slaves returned to Missouri with him, and had been
there for near fifteen years, in that condition, when this suit was
instituted. But absence, in the performance of military duty, without
more, is a fact of no importance in determining a question of a change
of domicil. Questions of that kind depend upon acts and intentions,
and are ascertained from motives, pursuits, the condition of the
family, and fortune of the party, and no change will be inferred,
unless evidence shows that one domicil was abandoned, and t