DISSENTING OPINIONS tron's. (Characterizes the Chief Justice's position as "rather sharp practice.") CURTIS: Yes. SECOND. — WHETHER THE FEDERAL COURTS HAD JURISDICTION; i.e., WHETHER A DESCENDANT OF NEGRO SLAVES, HIM SELF FREE OR NOT, COULD BE A "CITIZEN." TANEY: No; even though he were a free negro himself. MCLEAN: Yes; if the question is open to discussion (which he denies). CURTIS: Yes. The court had jurisdiction, so far as concerned the showing as to the ancestry of Scott; for he might still be a descendant of negro slaves, and yet, if himself a free negro, he was a citizen of Missouri; and if of Missouri, then of the United States. THIRD. — WHETHER A CITIZEN OF A STATE IS THEREBY A ClTIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES. TANEY: It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a state, that he must be a citizen of the United States. CURTIS: Every free person, born on the soil of a state, who is a citizen of that state by force of its constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States. FOURTH. — THE COURT HAVING NO JURIS DICTION, WHETHER IT OUGHT TO PRO CEED TO THE MERITS. TANEY: Yes. CURTIS: On so grave a subject as this, I feel obliged to say, that in my opinion such an exertion of judicial power transcends the limits of the authority of the court. I do not hold any opinion of this court, or any court, binding, when expressed on a ques tion not legitimately before it. ... A great question of constitutional law, deeply affecting the peace and welfare of the coun try, is not, in my opinion, a fit subject to be thus reached. MCLEAN: It is true this was said by the court, as also many other things which are of no authority. Nothing which has been
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said by them, which has not a direct bearing on the jurisdiction of the court, can be con sidered as authority. I shall certainly not regard it as such. FIFTH. — WHETHER THE MISSOURI COM PROMISE WAS CONSTITUTIONAL. TANEY : No. The power to make "needful rules and regulations respecting the terri tory " includes nothing but the Northwest Territory, and is anyway not a power to legislate or govern; and such a law more over, would deprive the slave-owner from other states of his property on entering the territory, without due process of law. CATRON- No. The above reasoning is erroneous. The Missouri Compromise Act is void because it attempts to repeal that part of the treaty of 1803 which guarantees to the inhabitants of the Louisiana Purchase protection of their liberty, property, and religion, and because it effectually excludes slave-owners from that territory. McLEAN: Yes. Under the constitutional power to make "needful rules and regula tions respecting the territory," Congress has ample legislative power over the Louisiana Purchase; tha* even without it, "if there be a right to acquire territory, there necessarily must be an implied power to govern it"; that in prohibiting slavery, the Missouri Compromise Act neither forfeited property nor took it for public purposes. CURTIS : Yes. To the same effect as McLean, and in addition that the act operated on status, and not on property rights at all. SIXTH. — WHETHER SCOTT BECAME FREE AFTER HAVING LIVED IN FREE ILLINOIS. TANEY: No. Because his status as a slave had already been acquired in Missouri. NELSON: No. It is optional with Mis souri whether to recognize the law of Illinois, and as a Missouri court had already decided this question against Scott, the Supreme Court was bound by its decision. GRIER: Because the decision of the Mis souri court had not been specially pleaded, it was improper to consider it at all.
