il of his origin, in company with his master, to communities
where the law of slavery did not prevail. My examination is confined
to the case, as it was submitted upon uncontested evidence, upon
appropriate issues to the jury, and upon the instructions given and
refused by the court upon that evidence. My opinion is, that the
opinion of the Circuit Court was correct upon all the claims involved
in those issues, and that the verdict of the jury was justified by the
evidence and instructions.

The jury have returned that the plaintiff and his family are slaves.

Upon this record, it is apparent that this is not a controversy
between citizens of different States; and that the plaintiff, at no
period of the life which has been submitted to the view of the court,
has had a capacity to maintain a suit in the courts of the United
States. And in so far as the argument of the Chief Justice upon the
plea in abatement has a reference to the plaintiff or his family, in
any of the conditions or circumstances of their lives, as presented in
the evidence, I concur in that portion of his opinion. I concur in the
judgment which expresses the conclusion that the Circuit Court should
not have rendered a general judgment.

The capacity of the plaintiff to sue is involved in the pleas in bar,
and the verdict of the jury discloses an incapacity under the
Constitution. Under the Constitution of the United States, his is an
incapacity to sue in their courts, while, by the laws of Missouri, the
operation of the verdict would be more extensive. I think it a safe
conclusion to enforce the lesser disability imposed by the
Constitution of the United States, and leave to the plaintiff all his
rights in Missouri. I think the judgment should be affirmed, on the
ground that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, or that the case
should be reversed and remanded, that the suit may be dismissed.

* * * * *

Mr. Justice CATRON.

The defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, that
the plaintiff was a negro of African blood; the descendant of
Africans, who had been imported and sold in this country as slaves,
and thus had no capacity as a citizen of Missouri to maintain a suit
in the Circuit Court. The court sustained a demurrer to this plea, and
a trial was had upon the pleas, of the general issue, and also that
the plaintiff and his family were slaves, belonging to the defendant.
In this trial, a verdi