their assumption of authority to examine
the constitutionality of the act of Congress commonly called the
Missouri compromise act, and the grounds and conclusions announced in
their opinion.

Having first decided that they were bound to consider the sufficiency
of the plea to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, and having
decided that this plea showed that the Circuit Court had not
jurisdiction, and consequently that this is a case to which the
judicial power of the United States does not extend, they have gone on
to examine the merits of the case as they appeared on the trial before
the court and jury, on the issues joined on the pleas in bar, and so
have reached the question of the power of Congress to pass the act of
1820. 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, as described by its repeated decisions,
and, as I understand, acknowledged in this opinion of the majority of
the court.

In the course of that opinion, it became necessary to comment on the
case of Legrand _v._ Darnall, (reported in 2 Peters's R., 664.) In
that case, a bill was filed, by one alleged to be a citizen of
Maryland, against one alleged to be a citizen of Pennsylvania. The
bill stated that the defendant was the son of a white man by one of
his slaves; and that the defendant's father devised to him certain
lands, the title to which was put in controversy by the bill. These
facts were admitted in the answer, and upon these and other facts the
court made its decree, founded on the principle that a devise of land
by a master to a slave was by implication also a bequest of his
freedom. The facts that the defendant was of African descent, and was
born a slave, were not only before the court, but entered into the
entire substance of its inquiries. The opinion of the majority of my
brethren in this case disposes of the case of Legrand _v._ Darnall, by
saying, among other things, that as the fact that the defendant was
born a slave only came before this court on the bill and answer, it
was then too late to raise the question of the personal disability of
the party, and therefore that decision is altogether inapplicable in
this case.

In this I concur. Since the decision of this court in Livingston _v._
Story, (11 Pet., 351,) the law has been settled, that when the
declaration or bill contains the necessary averments of citizensh