Court Opinion

ID: 86292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:00:21+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:27.144750
License: Public Domain

43 U.S. 486 (____)
2 How. 486
AUSTIN L. ADAMS AND ANN C. HARDING, PLAINTIFFS IN ERROR,
v.
JULIA ROBERTS.
Supreme Court of United States.

*491 Neale and Bradley, for the plaintiffs in error.
Brent, sen., for the defendant.
*494 Mr. Justice WAYNE delivered the opinion of the court.
We think the court below did no err in refusing to give the instructions asked for by the defendants in either the first or second bill of exceptions.
By the statute of Virginia two modes are pointed out in which manumission by deed can be accomplished.
1. The instrument in writing under the hand and seal of the party must be attested and proved in the County or Corporation Court by two witnesses; or
2. It must be acknowledged by the party in the court of the county where he or she resides.
Either of these modes is effectual. It is stated in the bill of exceptions, and is not contradicted, that the county of Alexandria was made on the 27th of February, 1801, being composed of what had been a part of the county of Fairfax, in Virginia, and that Summers owned 200 acres of woodland in Fairfax county, and was interested in another tract of land also in said county, upon which there was a house. But it does not appear how far within the line of the District the actual residence of Summers was thrown, whether the dividing line ran through his farm, separating the house from the great body of the land, or whether the land upon which his slaves resided was a separate estate, detached from his residence. But it sufficiently appears that up to February, 1801, Summers had been accustomed to resort to the court of Fairfax county, for the transaction of business of every description, and that the jurisdiction under which he lived then became changed, without its having been done by his removal from where he had lived before.
*495 The claimant in support of her freedom alleges, that Summers executed an instrument under his hand and seal on the 30th December, 1801, to which the names of Charles Little and Harrison Cleveland are attached as witnesses. Upon the 18th of January, 1802, by a copy admitted to be a copy of that instrument, and not objected to when offered as evidence, it appears that Summers went into court in Fairfax county and acknowledged it to be a deed of manumission. The court ordered it to be recorded, and it was done. There is nothing in the record to show whether or not the two witnesses were present with him in court when he made this acknowledgment. If they were, the case would clearly fall within the first mode pointed out by the statute, being an instrument in writing, under the hand and seal of the party, attested and proved in the County Court by two witnesses. It is not said in what court the attestation and proof must be made, in the case of a non-resident owning slaves resident in Virginia, but we presume that in such a case the attestation and proof ought to be made in the County Court where the slave resides.
It is not necessary however to decide that question in this case, because the proof to substantiate and give validity to the instrument does not exist, but we have recited the preceding facts, because they are evidence in the case, and are connected with the paper purporting to be a copy of a deed of manumission, which was introduced to sustain the claimant's demand for freedom. This then is the copy of an original paper not denied to be such by the plaintiffs in error, and the question occurring is, how ought it to have been considered in the court below as a part of the evidence in the cause, with reference to the instructions asked? In the first instruction, the court is asked to put the case, that the deed of emancipation so as aforesaid made, executed, and acknowledged and recorded, did not entitle the petitioner to freedom, under the statute in such cases made and provided by an act, entitled an act reducing into one the several acts concerning slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes, passed December 17, 1792.
The paper in evidence was the copy of an original, the execution of which by the grantor was not denied. It was received as evidence upon proof of the loss of the original. It was forty years old. No proof of its execution was necessary; its antiquity proved it. But, it is said, the proof and attestation before the court in Virginia, to give it validity, was wanting, and that it appeared to be so upon the face of the paper given in evidence. That might, or might not be so. But it was a fact in controversy between the parties, as much so as *496 any other fact in the case, and the court could not be asked to instruct the jury upon their belief of another single fact, namely, the residence of Simon Summers in the county of Alexandria, that the party was not entitled to freedom under the statute of Virginia. The instruction as asked excludes all the other evidence, and puts the legal issue proposed on it upon a single fact. It excludes also, all presumptions which the jury might make from the other evidence in connection with the antiquity of the paper which was before them. The court did not err in refusing to give the first instruction.
The second instruction asked for by the defendants in the court below was, that the testimony, although believed by the jury, was not sufficient in law to entitle the petitioner to her freedom.
If the jury believed all the evidence offered, the case would have stood thus: Susan the mother of Julia was to become free on the first of January, 1814. If they believed that fact, and also believed that Julia was born after that day, she was the child of a free woman and of course free herself. The trial took place at May term, 1842. Evidence was offered to show that Julia was then about twenty-eight years old. If she was twenty-eight years of age at any period between the first of January and May, 1842, of course she was born after her mother had become free. The instruction asked the court to deprive the jury of the power of saying, she was born in that interval. This was a fact especially proper for the consideration of the jury, and the court could not have given the instruction asked by the defendant; that the testimony was not sufficient in law to entitle the petitioner to her freedom, without assuming the fact, that Julia was not born in the interval already mentioned. We think the court did not err in refusing the instruction.
The judgment of the court below is affirmed.

ORDER.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, holden in and for the county of Alexandria, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, It is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said Circuit Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby affirmed with costs.