rresistible. But the court held they did
not, when demurred to, amount to such inferable facts. In the case at
bar, the inference that the defendant was a slave at the time of
action brought, even if it can be made at all, from the fact that his
parents were slaves, is certainly not a necessary inference. This
case, therefore, is like that of Digby _v._ Alexander, (8 Bing., 116.)
In that case, the defendant pleaded many facts strongly tending to
show that he was once Earl of Stirling; but as there was no positive
allegation that he was so at the time of action brought, and as every
fact averred might be true, and yet the defendant not have been Earl
of Stirling at the time of action brought, the plea was held to be
insufficient.

A lawful seizin of land is presumed to continue. But if, in an action
of trespass _quare clausum_, the defendant were to plead that he was
lawfully seized of the _locus in quo_, one month before the time of
the alleged trespass, I should have no doubt it would be a bad plea.
(See Mollan _v._ Torrance, 9 Wheat., 537.) So if a plea to the
jurisdiction, instead of alleging that the plaintiff was a citizen of
the same State as the defendant, were to allege that the plaintiff's
ancestors were citizens of that State, I think the plea could not be
supported. My judgment would be, as it is in this case, that if the
defendant meant to aver a particular substantive fact, as existing at
the time of action brought, he must do it directly and explicitly, and
not by way of inference from certain other averments, which are quite
consistent with the contrary hypothesis. I cannot, therefore, treat
this plea as containing an averment that the plaintiff himself was a
slave at the time of action brought; and the inquiry recurs, whether
the facts, that he is of African descent, and that his parents were
once slaves, are necessarily inconsistent with his own citizenship in
the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws
of the United States.

In Gassies _v._ Ballon, (6 Pet., 761,) the defendant was described on
the record as a naturalized citizen of the United States, residing in
Louisiana. The court held this equivalent to an averment that the
defendant was a citizen of Louisiana; because a citizen of the United
States, residing in any State of the Union, is, for purposes of
jurisdiction, a citizen of that State. Now, the plea to the
jurisdiction in this case does not controvert the fact th