From the St. Louis Republican

From the St. Louis Republican]

 

The case of the Dred Scott vs Sanford, a suit for freedom now pending on appeal in the United States Supreme Court, was before our own courts under the name of Scott vs Emerson, and will be found reported in 15 Mo. Rep., p 570. The facts are briefly as follows: Dr. Emerson, the owner of Dred Scott, was a surgeon in the army, who being ordered from St. Louis to Rack Island, in Illinois, took his servants with him, and detained them in servitude from 1831 to 1836, and then removed them to Fort Snelling, and detained them until 1838, when they were returned to St. Louis.   

 

Our Supreme Court, Gamble dissenting, held that the slave returning to this State, although he might have been illegally held in slavery in Illinois, or in the Territory, and might perhaps there have been sued for and obtained his freedom, yet upon his return, he was remitted to his status in this State, and that our courts would not enforce the laws of Illinois, and would not confiscate the property of her own citizens at the command of a foreign law, and that the fact of the suit for freedom showed that the defendant had not assented to the freedom of the slave. 

 

The suit now pending upon appeal was bought in the Circuit Court for this district in the usual method of trespass for an assault. The defendant pleaded, in abatement of the jurisdiction, that the plaintiff was his slave, and was not a citizen of the State of Missouri, and therefore not entitled to bring suit in the United States Court. This plea was overruled upon demurrer, and the facts submitted to the court which followed the decision of the Supreme Court of the State, and from this decision an appeal was taken.

 

The question, therefore, arising up in the record before the court would seem to be: 1st, Is a negro citizen within the meaning of the Constitution so as to be entitled to all the privileges of citizens of the several States, and thus entitled to sue for his freedom in the courts of the United States? 2d - Will the courts of the United States undertake to give force and effect to the laws of one State within the limits of another, by deciding upon the status of the party as affected by the laws of the foreign State, or will it hold that the party returning in slavery, his status must be determined by the laws of the State in which he resides, and that the domestic and social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory must be decided by the laws of the State, except so far as such laws conflict with the Constitution of the United States, and does not touch the subject? 

 

The last view was that taken by the Supreme Court in the case of Strader vs. Graham, 10 How R. '2, and from that opinion the court is not likely to recede. Consequently, the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise is not necessarily involved in the case before the court, not likely to be decided. The important questions would seem to be, can a negro be a citizen within the terms of the constitution, so that a negro from Massachusetts can live in South Carolina, if he sees fit, claiming that, being a citizen of Massachusetts, he is therefore a citizen of the United States. This position has been denied by the lower courts in several States, but we are not aware that it has even been decided by any court of last resort. We await, therefore, the decision of the case with a great deal of interest.