the rules and articles of war, and such laws of the
United States, including the eighth section of the act of March 6,
1820, prohibiting slavery, as were applicable to their condition; but
after the erection of the Territory, and the extension of the laws of
the United States and the laws of Michigan over the whole of the
Territory, including this military post, the persons residing there
were under the dominion of those laws in all particulars to which the
rules and articles of war did not apply.

It thus appears that, by these acts of Congress, not only was a
general system of municipal law borrowed from the State of Michigan,
which did not tolerate slavery, but it was positively enacted that
slavery and involuntary servitude, with only one exception,
specifically described, should not exist there. It is not simply that
slavery is not recognised and cannot be aided by the municipal law. It
is recognised for the purpose of being absolutely prohibited, and
declared incapable of existing within the Territory, save in the
instance of a fugitive slave.

It would not be easy for the Legislature to employ more explicit
language to signify its will that the _status_ of slavery should not
exist within the Territory, than the words found in the act of 1820,
and in the ordinance of 1787; and if any doubt could exist concerning
their application to cases of masters coming into the Territory with
their slaves to reside, that doubt must yield to the inference
required by the words of exception. That exception is, of cases of
fugitive slaves. An exception from a prohibition marks the extent of
the prohibition; for it would be absurd, as well as useless, to except
from a prohibition a case not contained within it. (9 Wheat., 200.) I
must conclude, therefore, that it was the will of Congress that the
state of involuntary servitude of a slave, coming into the Territory
with his master, should cease to exist. The Supreme Court of Missouri
so held in Rachel _v._ Walker, (4 Misso. R., 350,) which was the case
of a military officer going into the Territory with two slaves.

But it is a distinct question, whether the law of Missouri recognised
and allowed effect to the change wrought in the _status_ of the
plaintiff, by force of the laws of the Territory of Wisconsin.

I say the law of Missouri, because a judicial tribunal, in one State
or nation, can recognise personal rights acquired by force of the law
of any other State or nation,