e Territory,
before their admission to the Union, the courts of justice cannot
decide. This must depend, for the most part, on political
considerations, which cannot enter into the determination of a case of
law or equity. I do not feel called upon to define the jurisdiction of
Congress. It is sufficient for the decision of this case to ascertain
whether the residuary sovereignty of the States or people has been
invaded by the 8th section of the act of 6th March, 1820, I have
cited, in so far as it concerns the capacity and _status_ of persons
in the condition and circumstances of the plaintiff and his family.

These States, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, were
organized communities, having distinct systems of municipal law,
which, though derived from a common source, and recognising in the
main similar principles, yet in some respects had become unlike, and
on a particular subject promised to be antagonistic.

Their systems provided protection for life, liberty, and property,
among their citizens, and for the determination of the condition and
capacity of the persons domiciled within their limits. These
institutions, for the most part, were placed beyond the control of the
Federal Government. The Constitution allows Congress to coin money,
and regulate its value; to regulate foreign and Federal commerce; to
secure, for a limited period, to authors and inventors, a property in
their writings and discoveries; and to make rules concerning captures
in war; and, within the limits of these powers, it has exercised,
rightly, to a greater or less extent, the power to determine what
shall and what shall not be property.

But the great powers of war and negotiation, finance, postal
communication, and commerce, in general, when employed in respect to
the property of a citizen, refer to, and depend upon, the municipal
laws of the States, to ascertain and determine what is property, and
the rights of the owner, and the tenure by which it is held.

Whatever these Constitutions and laws validly determine to be
property, it is the duty of the Federal Government, through the domain
of jurisdiction merely Federal, to recognise to be property.

And this principle follows from the structure of the respective
Governments, State and Federal, and their reciprocal relations. They
are different agents and trustees of the people of the several States,
appointed with different powers and with distinct purposes, but whose
acts,