of Ohio. The Supreme Court
of that State having decided it was not negotiable, the plaintiff
became nonsuit, and brought his action in the Circuit Court of the
United States. The decision of the Supreme Court of the State,
reported 4 Ves., L.J., 527, was relied on. This court unanimously held
the paper to be negotiable.

When the decisions of the highest court of a State are directly in
conflict with each other, it has been repeatedly held, here, that the
last decision is not necessarily to be taken as the rule. (State Bank
_v._ Knoop, 16 How., 369; Pease _v._ Peck, 18 How., 599.)

To these considerations I desire to add, that it was not made known to
the Supreme Court of Missouri, so far as appears, that the plaintiff
was married in Wisconsin with the consent of Dr. Emerson, and it is
not made known to us that Dr. Emerson was a citizen of Missouri, a
fact to which that court seem to have attached much importance.

Sitting here to administer the law between these parties, I do not
feel at liberty to surrender my own convictions of what the law
requires, to the authority of the decision in 15 Missouri Reports.

I have thus far assumed, merely for the purpose of the argument, that
the laws of the United States, respecting slavery in this Territory,
were constitutionally enacted by Congress. It remains to inquire
whether they are constitutional and binding laws.

In the argument of this part of the case at bar, it was justly
considered by all the counsel to be necessary to ascertain the source
of the power of Congress over the territory belonging to the United
States. Until this is ascertained, it is not possible to determine the
extent of that power. On the one side it was maintained that the
Constitution contains no express grant of power to organize and govern
what is now known to the laws of the United States as a Territory.
That whatever power of this kind exists, is derived by implication
from the capacity of the United States to hold and acquire territory
out of the limits of any State, and the necessity for its having some
government.

On the other side, it was insisted that the Constitution has not
failed to make an express provision for this end, and that it is found
in the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution.

To determine which of these is the correct view, it is needful to
advert to some facts respecting this subject, which existed when the
Constitution was framed and adopted. It w