Under this theory, the courts of slave States had generally accorded freedom to slaves, even when acquired by the laws of a free-State, and reciprocally the courts of free-States had enforced the master's right to his slave where that right depended on the laws of a slave-State.

In this spirit, and conforming to this established usage, the local court of Missouri declared Dred Scott and his family free.
The claimant, loath to lose these four human "chattels," carried the case to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, where at its March term, 1852, it was reversed, and a decree rendered that these negroes were not entitled to freedom.

Three judges formed the court, and two of them joined in an opinion bearing internal evidence that it was prompted, not by considerations of law and justice, but by a spirit of retaliation growing out of the ineradicable antagonism of freedom and slavery.
[Sidenote] Scott, J., 15 Mo.

Reports, pp.

582-6.
Every State [says the opinion] has the right of determining how far, in a spirit of comity, it will respect the laws of other States.