ghest and most august judicial tribunal of this country
pronounced doctrines abhorrent to the age, overthrowing the acts
and practices of the fathers and framers of the Republic, and
pronouncing the Ordinance of 1787, in so far as it restricted human
slavery, and all like enactments as, from the beginning,
_unconstitutional_.

This decision startled the bench and bar and the thinking people
of the whole country, not alone on account of the doctrines laid
down by the court, but because of the new departure of a high court
in going beyond the confines of the case made on the record to
announce them.

It is, to say the least, only usual for any court to decide the
issues necessary to a determination of the real case under
consideration, nothing more; but the court in this case first
decided that the Circuit Court, from which error was prosecuted,
had no jurisdiction to render any judgment, it having found "upon
the showing of Scott himself that he was still a slave; not even
to render a judgment against him and in favor of defendants for
costs."

In the opinion it is said:

"It is the judgment of this court that it appears by the record
before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri,
in the same sense in which that word is used in the Constitution;
and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason,
had _no jurisdiction_ in the case, and could give no judgment in
it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed,
and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want
of jurisdiction."

Having thus decided, it followed that anything said or attempted
to be decided on other questions was extra-judicial--mere _obiter
dicta_, if even that.

Nor does the objection to the matters covered by the decision rest
alone on its extra-judicial character, but on the fact that in
settling a mere individual controversy it passed from private rights
to public rights of the people in their national character, wholly
pertaining to political questions, entirely beyond the province of
the court, legally, judicially, or potentially. It had no legal
right as a court to decide or comment upon what was not before it;
it had no judicial power to make any decree to enforce public or
political rights, nor yet to enforce, by any instrumentalities or
judicial machinery,--fines, jails, etc.,--any such decrees.

Moreover, the decision invaded the express powers of the Constitution