it. In all cases where there is a settled construction
of the laws of a State, by its highest judicature established by
admitted precedent, it is the practice of the courts of the United
States to receive and adopt it, without criticism or further inquiry.
When the decisions of the State court are not consistent, we do not
feel bound to follow the last, if it is contrary to our own
convictions; and much more is this the case where, after a long course
of consistent decisions, some new light suddenly springs up, or an
excited public opinion has elicited new doctrines subversive of former
safe precedent."

These words, it appears to me, have a stronger application to the case
before us than they had to the cause in which they were spoken as the
opinion of this court; and I regret that they do not seem to be as
fresh in the recollection of some of my brethren as in my own. For
twenty-eight years, the decisions of the Supreme Court of Missouri
were consistent on all the points made in this case. But this
consistent course was suddenly terminated, whether by some new light
suddenly springing up, or an excited public opinion, or both, it is
not necessary to say. In the case of Scott _v._ Emerson, in 1852,
they were overturned and repudiated.

This, then, is the very case in which seven of my brethren declared
they would not follow the last decision. On this authority I may well
repose. I can desire no other or better basis.

But there is another ground which I deem conclusive, and which I will
re-state.

The Supreme Court of Missouri refused to notice the act of Congress or
the Constitution of Illinois, under which Dred Scott, his wife and
children, claimed that they are entitled to freedom.

This being rejected by the Missouri court, there was no case before
it, or least it was a case with only one side. And this is the case
which, in the opinion of this court, we are bound to follow. The
Missouri court disregards the express provisions of an act of Congress
and the Constitution of a sovereign State, both of which laws for
twenty-eight years it had not only regarded, but carried into effect.

If a State court may do this, on a question involving the liberty of a
human being, what protection do the laws afford? So far from this
being a Missouri question, it is a question, as it would seem, within
the twenty-fifth section of the judiciary act, where a right to
freedom being set up under the act of Congress, and the deci