Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the
question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement,
and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then all
else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a slave
State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of his
pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom, nor
alter the fact.
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