The chief justice and a majority of his
associates held that Dred Scott, who sued his master for his freedom in
the Federal court, had been already legally declared to be the slave of
that same master by the highest court of the State of Missouri, in
which State Scott resided at the time. They held that this decision of
the Missouri court was binding on all other tribunals; and that the
Federal court had no authority to reverse it, even if wrong.
The _merits_ of the cause then before the court were thus conclusively
disposed of, whether the decision be regarded as bearing on the main
issue between the parties, or on the plea in abatement filed by the
defendant, avowing that Scott was not a _citizen_ of Missouri,--an
averment, if true, fatal to his standing in the Federal court,--since
its jurisdiction of the cause depended on the citizenship of the
litigants. In a word, if he was a _slave_, he was no _citizen_, If he
was the slave of Sanford, his doom was fixed, his dream of rights
dissolved. If the decision of the Missouri court was finally binding,
the functions of the Federal tribunal were at an end.
What, then, was the pertinency of going on to argue the effect of the
Ordinance of 1787 over Scott while a resident in Illinois, or of the
Missouri Compromise on him during his residence in Wisconsin, or the
effect of his color, race, or ancestral disabilities upon a cause
controlled finally and beyond appeal by the authority of a decision
already made and recorded?
Mr.
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