1857] tution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, "Three fifths and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained of all other subject to their authority, and had no rights or Constitution, privileges but such as those who held the power and Art. i. sect. the government might choose to grant them. persons." 9, § 1. It is not the province of the Court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the political or law-making power; to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Constitution. The duty of the Court is, to interpret the instrument Constitution, they have framed, with the best lights we can obtain Art. iii. sect. 2, § 1. on the subject, and to administer it as we find it, according to its true intent and meaning when it was adopted. to the Con In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a Fourteenth citizen of the United States. He may have all of amendment the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State stitution and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges makes it so. of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this charac- Articles of Confederater of course was confined to the boundaries of tion, iv. the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. No one, we presume, supposes that any change England abolished slavery in 1833; the purchasemoney given by Great Britain to the slave owners was 20,000,000/. in public opinion or feeling in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the courts to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time Const. Art. v. of its adoption. It is not only the same in words but the same in meaning, and delegates the same power to the government and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and, as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only with the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this Court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This Court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty. This dictum is successfully infuted by George Livermore, Historical Research. What the construction was at that time, we think can hardly admit of doubt. We have the language of the Declaration of Independence and of the Articles of Confederation, in addition to the plain words of the Constitution itself; we have the legislation of the different States, before, about the time, and since, the Constitution was adopted; we have the legislation of Congress, from the time of its adoption to a recent period; and we have the constant and uniform action of the executive department, all concurring together, and leading to the same result. And if anything in relation to the construction of the Constitution can be regarded as settled, it is that which we now give to the word "citizen" and the word "people." The decision And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the Court is of opinion, that, upon the facts stated in the plea in abatement, Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of that the Cirthe Constitution of the United States, and not en- cuit Court titled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, had no juris"diction of that the Circuit Court has no jurisdiction of the the case was case, and that the judgment on the plea in abate- of course adment is erroneous. verse to Dred Scott. Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly expressed and affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it, for twenty years. And the government in express Const. Art. i. terms is pledged to protect it in all future time, if sect. 9, § 1. the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words too plain to be misunderstood. And iv. sect. 2, Const. Art. no word can be found in the Constitution which § 2. Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the Act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of "Missouri the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by Compromise" held the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that unconstituneither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, tional. were made free by being carried into this terri See Const. Note Declaration of Independence. tory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident. Extract from JUSTICE BENJAMIN R. CURTIS, dissenting. I dissent from the opinion pronounced by the Chief Justice, and from the judgment which the majority of the court think it proper to render in this case... One mode of approaching this question is, to inquire who were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution can have been no other than citizens of the United States under the Confederation. By the Articles of Confederation, a Government was organized, the style whereof was, The United States of America.' This Government was in existence when the Constitution was framed and proposed for adoption, and was to be superseded by the new Government of the United States of America, organized under the Constitution. When, therefore, the Constitution speaks of citizenship of the United States, existing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, it must necessarily refer to citizenship under the Government which existed prior to and at the time of such adoption. Without going into any question concerning the powers of the Confederation to govern the territory of the United States out of the limits of the States, and consequently to sustain the relation of Government and citizen in respect to the inhabitants of such territory, it may safely be said that the citizens of the several States were citizens of the United States under the Confederation. . . . Did the Constitution of the United States deprive them or their descendants of citizenship? That Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, of the Con shire, Massa in each State, of those persons who were qualified Through the by its laws to act thereon, in behalf of themselves ratification and all other citizens of that State. In some of the stitution. States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on this subject. These Instanced by New Hampcolored persons were not only included in the body of the people of the United States,' by whom the chusetts, Constitution was ordained and established, but in New York, New Jersey, at least five of the States they had the power to act, and North and doubtless did act, by their suffrages, upon the Carolina, question of its adoption. It would be strange, if bers of the we were to find in that instrument anything which colored race deprived of their citizenship any part of the people only citizens of the United States who were among those by but many of whom it was established. where mem were not them had the 66 franchise I can find nothing in the Constitution which, of electors." proprio vigore, deprives of their citizenship any class of persons who were citizens of the United States at the time of its adoption, or who should be native-born citizens of any State after its adoption; nor any power enabling Congress to disfranchise persons born on the soil of any State, and entitled to citizenship of such State by its Constitution and laws. And my opinion is, that, under the Constitution of the United States, every free person born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen of that State by force of its Constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States. The conclusions at which I have arrived on this part of the case are: FIRST. That the free native-born citizens of each State are citizens of the United States. SECOND. That as free colored persons born within some of the States are citizens of those States, such persons are also citizens of the United States. Citizenship. Colored citizenship. |