Case Name: John Anderson v. Henry Poindexter and others
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1856-12
Citations: 6 Ohio St. 622
Docket Number: 
Parties: John Anderson v. Henry Poindexter and others.
Judges: Scott, J., concurred.
Reporter: Ohio State Reports, New Service
Volume: 6
Pages: 623–727

Head Matter:
John Anderson v. Henry Poindexter and others.
Neither Ohio nor Kentucky can demand an abrogation of the constitution and. municipal laws of the other, as a matter of comity; and if a person claimed as a slave in Kentucky comes into Ohio by the direction or consent of his owner, to perform for him menial services here, even temporarily, the constitution and laws of Ohio operate on the condition of such person, and effect his immediate emancipation.
There is no law, either in Kentucky or Ohio, by which a man, once free, can afterward be enslaved, except for the violation of some municipal law.
By the laws of Kentucky, a person -who is held and treated as a slave, has no capacity to make any contract whatever; and promissory notes given to his master by himself and sureties for him, in the purchase of his freedom, are illegal and void, as to both principal and sureties.
In error to the district court of Clermont county.
The action below was assumpsit, brought to recover the amount of two promissory notes given to the plaintiff, dated August 22, 1848, each for $100, one payable in two, and the other in three years-after date. Poindexter was the principal in the notes, and Thomas C. G-owdy, Jackson "White, and Francis Donaldson were sureties. Poindexter was not served with process, and the suit has been prosecuted against and defended by the sureties.
The general issue and two special pleas were filed by the defendants.
*The first special plea alleges that the plaintiff claimed Poin- [623 dexter as his slave, and promised the defendants if they would execute said notes, that he would, by deed, manumit the said Poindexter; that there was no other consideration for the notes. Tetthe plaintiff hath not made such deed for that purpose.
The second special plea avers that the solo consideration of the notes was to obtain the freedom of Poindexter from the plaintiff’s-claim to hold him as a slave, which he pretended it was lawful for-him to do ; whereas, in fact, at divers times before the execution of' the notes, the plaintiff had permitted Poindexter to come from the State of Kentucky into the State of Ohio, and pursuant to the permission thus given, the said Poindexter did, several times, come into-the State of Ohio, and each time did remain within the state for along space of time, to wit, for the time of one day, by which act of the plaintiff, and the coming into this state by Poindexter, the lat ■ter was, in fact, set free by the laws of this state, and before the delivery of the notes to plaintiff was a free man ; wherefore said notes .■are without consideration and not binding on defendants.
The plaintiff replied to these pleas, taking issue thereon, and con-'duding to the country.
At the May term, 1855, of the district court, the parties submitted the cause to the court, and, after hearing the evidence, that tribunal ,gave judgment for the defendants.
A bill of exceptions accompanies the record in which all of the ' evidence, given on the trial, is contained. From this it is shown that plaintiff, at and before the date of the notes, lived in Campbell ■county, Kentucky, about one mile from the Ohio river, and opposite New Eichmond, Clermont county ; that Poindexter had lived with him as a slave seven or eight years, was about twenty-six years of '624] age, *and worth one thousand dollars. Poindexter procured the execution of four notes of $100 each, payable to his master, two •of which are the subjects of this action, and presented them to plaintiff at his house in Kentucky, but without the presence of the •sureties, and asked him if the security was sufficient. The latter .said it was. Poindexter then asked him if he could go free on those notes. Plaintiff replied that he would let him go free on the .security of the notes, and as soon as they were paid he would give him free papers. Plaintiff accepted the notes and gave up any further control over Poindexter, and permitted him to go free, after which he worked sometimes in Ohio, and sometimes for plaintiff, as :& hired man, until after the notes became due, when plaintiff called on G-owdy, one of the defendants, living in Clermont county, who .said the debt was a just one, and requested plaintiff not to sue, as he would pay his proportion without suit, and wrote to Poindexter to forward what money he could, immediately, or the sureties would have to pay it. Neither Poindexter nor the defendants received ■from the plaintiff any other consideration for the notes than the ■freedom from a state of supposed slavery, conferred on the former •in the manner and-to the extent before stated.
Another witness, called by the defendants, testified that the plaint■iff had told him that before the making of the notes he had permitted Poindexter to go across the river into the State of Ohio, ■on errands, and once he sent him over to New Eichmond for a doctor, while he owned him, but that Henry always returned to him, fin Kentucky, voluntarily.
The two notes and the foregoing evidence ■ constituted all the proof given in the case.
It is claimed by the plaintiff that the finding of the district court was contrary to the law of the case, and for that reason he seeks to-reverse its judgment.
*John W. Lowe (with whom was P. J. Donham), for the [625 plaintiff,
made the following points :
1. The law of Kentucky governs the consideration of these notes. Lodge v. Phelps, 1 Johns. Ch. 140; Story’s Conflict of Laws, sec. 76.
2. The owner of a slave who resides in Kentucky, and permits his slave to cross over into the State of Ohio for a mere temporary purpose, and such slave returns voluntarily to him in Kentucky,, does not thereby forfeit his right of property in such slave. Ferry v. Street, 14 B. Mon. 358; Maria v. Kirby, 12 Ib. 542; Collins v. America, 9 Ib. 565; Tom Davis v. Fingle, 8 Ib. 546, 547; Graham v. Strader, 5 Ib. 149; 10 How. U. S. 92; Buck’s Rep’s v. White, 3 Mon. 104; Rankin v. Lydia, 2 Marsh. 476; U. S. v. Jarome, 11 Pet. 73; Lewis v. Fullerton, 1 Randolph (Va.), 15.
3. The State of Kentucky has the exclusive right of determining the condition or status of every person domiciled in her territory, subject to the restrictions of the constitution of the United States.
4. By the laws of Kentucky, the plaintiff had a valuable interest in the services of Henry Poindexter, and the consideration of said notes being the release of such claim, such notes are not without consideration.
5. If the question of the status of Henry, on his return to his-master, voluntarily, in Kentucky, had never been decided by the-courts of Kentucky or Ohio, yet if he was held by his master on his original claim, who released all his claim to him in consideration of these notes, the notes would not be without consideration, or void.
The compromise of a doubtful claim is a sufficient consideration to support a promissory note without reference to the manner in which the right would turn. 3 Hill, 504; *Chitty on Con- [626 tracts, 43, 44; 1 Bibb, 163; 2 Bibb, 448; 2 Penn. 531.
John Jolliffe, for the defendants.
No argument on the part of defendants, came to the hands of the Reporter.

Opinion:
Bowen, J.
The defense relied on, to prevent a recovery upon the notes, is a want of consideration to support them. The defendants have shaped their pleas and their evidence with a view of pro•senting that question to our consideration in its true aspect. There being no dispute as to the facts which induced the giving of the notes, we may proceed at once to an examination of the points which naturally arise out of those facts.
The plaintiff claimed that Poindexter was his slave, and agreed to set him free for four hundred dollars, secured by the notes of the defendants. It is fair to infer that the several parties who became bound on the notes, believed, at the time of signing them, that the plaintiff's claim of dominion over Poindexter was valid. They doubtless acted upon that conviction. What motive actuated •the plaintiff does not appear, except that he seems to have been willing to part with his right over the slave for the sum mentioned. He received from him these notes as the price of his manumission. This naturally leads to the inquiry, whether Poindexter was, at the time, a slave, or whether that relation toward the plaintiff, if it ever existed, had not been severed by the acts of himself? It is shown that Poindexter had lived with plaintiff seven or eight years, and had been called a slave, but during that period he had, several times, been sent by his master into this state on business, 627] and ^afterward returned and continued in his service. His actual condition, at any time while he lived with the plaintiff, is not manifest from anything shown in the case. It-does not appear how long he had been in servitude, nor does any presumption unfavorable to his freedom arise from-proof of his color. For aught' that appears he may have been a free white man, supposing himself bound to service. But, regarding him as a slave, before he came into this state by the consent of plaintiff, what effect did that transfer of him from slave to free territory have ? Some enlightened jurists in the slave states admit that if the master take his slave into a free state to reside permanently, that he thereby be-.co mes emancipated, but, at the same time they hold that if he go •there with him for a temporary purpose, although he may, while in -free territory, be suspended in his rights of owner over him, yet .if the servant return voluntarily into the state where he was legally •held to service, the rights and powers of the master re-attach as fully as they existed before. This distinction between the effect of a temporary and a permanent removal of slaves is maintained upon the ground that the property of an individual does not cease to belong to him on account of his being in a foreign state, and it is still a part of the wealth of the state from whence it came, and that the moveables of the stranger are held and pass by the laws of his own country, and hence the case of a sojourner is different from that of one who moves into a country with the intention of residing there.
The former is subject only to particular laws, and has the title of his property secure, while he who enters and actually resides, is subject to every law. Rankin v. Lydia, 2 A. K. Marshall, 813.
The soundness of this principle, in its general application to property, will not bo dented. But the common law confers no right of proj)orty in persons. It can exist only by «municipal author- [628 ity. Slavery is entirely local in its character, and is repugnant io reason and the principles of natural law, wherever it subsists. 1 Bla. Com. 423. Hence the same rules that would govern ordinary chattels, in their transit from one country into another, and by the comity of nations be enforced for the protection of their owners, do not apply to human beings, over whom no exercise of the rights of ownership can be asserted by either the natural or the revealed law. The sole foundation for the exercise of any such right rests in force and wrong; therefore it can not be extended beyond the limits of the government which ordains it. Other countries do not encourage it in any foi*m. The law of England abhors and will not endure the existence of it within the realm, and the instant a slave lands there, he becomes a freeman. 1 Bla. Com. 424. Sir William Draper Best, in Forbes v. Cochran, 2 Barn. & Cress. 448, says: "If a man wishes to preserve his slaves, let him attach them to him by affection, or make fast the bars of their prison, or rivet well their chains, for the instant they get beyond the limits where slavei-y is recognized by the local law, they have broken their- chains, they have escaped from their prison, and are free."
The Supreme Court of Louisiana has adopted the English doc-doctrine on this subject, and overthrown the distinction attempted to be drawn between the temporary removal of slaves into free states, and the taking of them there with the intention of their becoming residents.
In the case of Marie Louise v. Marat, 9 La. 473, the plaintiff's daughter was taken by her master to Prance, and afterward returned to the State of Louisiana. The court say that if she was taken by the person claiming her services as a slave, to a foreign country, whore slavery docs not exist, and is not tolerated, and by 629] the laws of *which such slave would be entitled to her liberty, for the purpose of her residence, even temporarily, the person taken to such country would become free, and that freedom once impressed upon an individual was indelible, and the status or condition in society of such party could not be changed; for being free for one moment in France, it was not in the power of her former-owner to reduce her. again to slavery.
In Frank v. Powell, 11 La. 499, it was hold that a slave brought into the State of Ohio, whose law forbid? slavery and involuntary servitude, and placed in service by his owner to an innkeeper, becomes free and emancipated by the operation of law, and his former-owner, by whose agency his removal is effected, must be presumed to have consented to all of the necessary legal consequences resulting from his removal to another state, under the operation of its-laws.
In Priscilla v. Smith, 13 La. 341, it was held that where a slave was taken from Louisiana with the consent of the owner to France, although afteward sent back, she was thereby entitled to her freedom from the fact of having been taken to a country where slavery-is not tolerated, and where the slave becomes free by landing on the French soil.
To the same purport is Lunsford v. Coquillon, 14 Martin, 401; Louis v. Caharrus, 7 La. 170; Thomas v. Geneies, 16 La. 483; Vaugh v. Williams, 3 McLean, 531; The matter of Ralph, 1 Morris (Iowa), 1; Sommersett's case, 20 State Trials, 1; Forbes v. Cochran, 2 Barn. & Cress. 448.
In Massachusetts, it was held, in 1836, that if a slave be voluntarily brought into that state by his master, or comes there with his 630] consent, he becomes free, and can, not be *coerced to return. Commonwealth v. Avis, 18 Pick. 93; Commonwealth v. Taylor, 3 Met. 72.
In Connecticut a similar decision was made in 1837. It was tbo case of a female slave brought by her master from Georgia for a temporary residence, and the court held that the master having left the slave in Connecticut, on a temporary absence from the state, she became forthwith free. Jackson v. Bullack, 12 Conn. 38.
In this state not only are our institutions and usages, and the sentiments of our population opposed to, and at variance with the institution of slavery in whatever form it may assume* but the ordinance of July 13,1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, prohibits, in express terms, its introduction here for any purpose whatever. By its imperative language it is denied any vitality on our soil. Its manacles instantly break asunder and crumble to dust, when he who has worn them obtains the liberty from his oppressor, and is afforded the opportunity by him of placing his feet upon our shore, and of breathing the air of freedom. To the terms of this ordinance, in this respect, all of our laws, subsequently enacted, have conformed. There has never been a period during our slate government, when a slave could for one single moment, by the consent and act of its owner, be placed and continued in bondage here.
If we look to the reason of the rule which controls personal ' property, and to the comity of nations and states which guarantees security to its owner, we experience no difficulty in confining its operations to things which, in all countries, are proper subjects of acquisition and of ownership, and of excluding it from objects not embraced within the term property, as understood and defined by the common law. In the one case it is the exercise of a natural *right, coeval with man's existence, and consistent with the [681 laws of the Creator and the principles of justice. In the other it is the maintenance of a claim to, and the exaction of service from, another by force and oppression, by a violation of laws and principles, both human and divine, under the sanction of local and peculiar legislation.
Kentucky can not, by the law of comity, demand of this state an abrogation of its constitution and municipal laws, to promote any of its own peculiar institutions, or interests; nor can Ohio make any such demand of Kentucky. Neither the obligations of duty, nor the principles of humanity, which all civilized nations recognize, in certain cases, as due from one to the other, can over warrant the making of such demand.
Strengthened, therefore, as we find the case to be, by the clearest principles of natural law, and by the decisions of courts of high character, we have no hesitation in arriving at the conclusion that Poindexter, in coming into this state by the consent and license of his master, obtained thereby the freedom of which he had been before deprived by local municipal legislation. His servitude, from that hour, ceased, and there is no law which can bring into operation the right of slavery when once destroyed. No right to a slave can be revived after the right has passed to the slave himself, .and he has become free. His subsequent return to the plaintiff, in Kentucky, could produce no such result. For, says Justice Mills, in Rankin v. Lydia, ubi supra, " shall it be seriously contended that so soon as he transported her to the Kentucky shore, the noxious atmosphere of this state, without any express law for the purpose, clamped upon her newly-forged chains of slavery, after the old ones were destroyed ? For the honor of our country, we can not, for a moment, admit that the bare tendency of its soil is thus dangerous to the degraded African."
*The court below properly gave judgment for the defendants for another reason. By the laws of Kentucky, no slave can make a contract with his master, or with any one else, for any purpose whatever. He can not bargain even for his freedom, and bind himself, or others for him, by contract. All agreements of that character are held to be void. Thus, in Willis v. Bruce, 8 B. Mon. 548, the court of appeals held that a promise to, or an executory contract with a slave by his owner, that he should be emancipated, is not obligatory, and can not be enforced, either at law or -in equity. Slaves can be emancipated in no other way than such as is prescribed by law. Dunlap v. Archer, 7 Dana, 31.
For this, as well as for the other reason above given, we are of opinion that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed.