versy in
England and America, that a marriage, valid by the law of the place
where it was contracted, and not in fraud of the law of any other
place, is valid everywhere; and that no technical domicil at the place
of the contract is necessary to make it so. (See Bishop on Mar. and
Div., 125-129, where the cases are collected.)

If, in Missouri, the plaintiff were held to be a slave, the validity
and operation of his contract of marriage must be denied. He can have
no legal rights; of course, not those of a husband and father. And the
same is true of his wife and children. The denial of his rights is the
denial of theirs. So that, though lawfully married in the Territory,
when they came out of it, into the State of Missouri, they were no
longer husband and wife; and a child of that lawful marriage, though
born under the same dominion where its parents contracted a lawful
marriage, is not the fruit of that marriage, nor the child of its
father, but subject to the maxim, _partus sequitur ventrem_.

It must be borne in mind that in this case there is no ground for the
inquiry, whether it be the will of the State of Missouri not to
recognise the validity of the marriage of a fugitive slave, who
escapes into a State or country where slavery is not allowed, and
there contracts a marriage; or the validity of such a marriage, where
the master, being a citizen of the State of Missouri, voluntarily goes
with his slave, _in itinere_, into a State or country which does not
permit slavery to exist, and the slave there contracts marriage
without the consent of his master; for in this case, it is agreed, Dr.
Emerson did consent; and no further question can arise concerning his
rights, so far as their assertion is inconsistent with the validity of
the marriage. Nor do I know of any ground for the assertion that this
marriage was in fraud of any law of Missouri. It has been held by this
court, that a bequest of property by a master to his slave, by
necessary implication entitles the slave to his freedom; because, only
as a freeman could he take and hold the bequest. (Legrand _v._
Darnall, 2 Pet. R., 664.) It has also been held, that when a master
goes with his slave to reside for an indefinite period in a State
where slavery is not tolerated, this operates as an act of
manumission; because it is sufficiently expressive of the consent of
the master that the slave should be free. (2 Marshall's Ken. R., 470;
14 Martin's Louis. R., 401.)