uch a decision I cannot assent. In my judgment,
the opinion of the majority of the court in that case is in conflict
with its previous decisions, with a great weight of judicial authority
in other slaveholding States, and with fundamental principles of
private international law. Mr. Chief Justice Gamble, in his dissenting
opinion in that case, said:

"I regard the question as conclusively settled by repeated
adjudications of this court; and if I doubted or denied the propriety
of those decisions, I would not feel myself any more at liberty to
overturn them, than I would any other series of decisions by which the
law upon any other question had been settled. There is with me nothing
in the law of slavery which distinguishes it from the law on any other
subject, or allows any more accommodation to the temporary excitements
which have gathered around it.... But in the midst of all such
excitement, it is proper that the judicial mind, calm and
self-balanced, should adhere to principles established when there was
no feeling to disturb the view of the legal questions upon which the
rights of parties depend."

"In this State, it has been recognised from the beginning of the
Government as a correct position in law, that the master who takes his
slave to reside in a State or Territory where slavery is prohibited,
thereby emancipates his slave." (Winney _v._ Whitesides, 1 Mo., 473;
Le Grange [Transcriber's Note: La Grange] _v._ Chouteau, 2 Mo., 20;
Milley _v._ Smith, Ib., 36; Ralph _v._ Duncan, 3 Mo., 194; Julia _v._
McKinney, Ib., 270; Nat _v._ Ruddle, Ib., 400; Rachel _v._ Walker, 4
Mo., 350; Wilson _v._ Melvin, 592.)

Chief Justice Gamble has also examined the decisions of the courts of
other States in which slavery is established, and finds them in
accordance with these preceding decisions of the Supreme Court of
Missouri to which he refers.

It would be a useless parade of learning for me to go over the ground
which he has so fully and ably occupied.

But it is further insisted we are bound to follow this decision. I do
not think so. In this case, it is to be determined what laws of the
United States were in operation in the Territory of Wisconsin, and
what was their effect on the _status_ of the plaintiff. Could the
plaintiff contract a lawful marriage there? Does any law of the State
of Missouri impair the obligation of that contract of marriage,
destroy his rights as a husband, bastardize the issue of the marriage,