ens of the United States with the right to sue in the federal courts. In other words, "animals" couldn't sue a fellow countryman. 2) Aside from not having the right to sue in the first place, Scott was still a slave because he never had been free to begin with. Owning slaves was protected by the Constitution at the time, and Congress exceeded its authority when it passed legislation forbidding or abolishing slavery in the territories. The Missouri Compromise was such an exercise of unconstitutional authority and was accordingly declared invalid. So, "animals" were the white man's property by authority of the doctrines passed down by the Founding Fathers. 3) Whatever status the slave may have had while he was in a free state or territory, if he voluntarily returned to a slave state, his status there depended upon the law of that slave state as interpreted by its own courts. In Scott's case, since the Missouri high court had declared him to be still a slave, that was the status and law which the Supreme Court of the United States would accept and recognize. In other words, in the middle of the nineteenth century, "animals" better just keep their mouth shut and work if they knew what was good for them. What was good for them was making the master rich. The good Reverend Jesse H. Turner of Virginia shifted from a Richmond pulpit to a nearby plantation and explained his prosperity by saying "I keep no breeding woman nor brood mare. If I want a Negro I buy him already raised to my hand, and if I want a horse or a mule I buy him also...I think it cheaper to buy than to raise. At my house, therefore, there are no noisy groups of mischievous young Negroes to feed, nor are there any flocks of young horses to maintain." (Farmers' Register X, 129. March, 1842) Whether it were cheaper to "breed" or to buy slaves depended upon the market price at the time. Slave children were a by-product that could hardly be contro...
