Slave Freedom Suits in Missouri: A Review

I have now discussed six cases decided by the Supreme Court of Missouri between 1824 and 1836: Winny v. Whitesides (1824); Merry v. Tiffin (1827); Milly v. Smith (1829); Julia v. McKinnney (1833); Nat v. Ruddle (1834); and Rachael v. Walker (1836). In each, the issue was whether Missouri courts should award a slave his or freedom because that slave had, at some point in the past, resided in a free state or territory.

The cases are remarkable. In each, the Supreme Court held that Missouri courts should apply the law of the free state or territory if the slave had resided there. Although the court drew the line at truly transitory presence, the court interpreted “residence” broadly. Although it characterized a master’s loss of his slave as a “forfeiture,” it repeatedly rejected attempts by slaveholders to narrow the definition of residence in lawyerly ways that would probably not have raised many eyebrows. To the contrary, the court expressed its frustration with slaveholders continued to contest what the court regarded as well-settled legal precedent.

The cases also suggest that the slaveholder litigants were not the only people unhappy with the court’s rulings. In rendering its decisions, the court was repeatedly forced to reverse jury instructions given by the state Circuit Court in St. Louis. Trial judges seem to have been sympathetic to slaveholder concerns and were interpreting the Supreme Court’s precedents to avoid or at least reduce their impact on slaveholders.

Finally, and perhaps most worthy of note, is what the cases do not say. There is no indication that even slaveholders were arguing that Missouri courts should not give some effect to the laws of the free states and territories. There is no suggestion that even slaveholders were contending that Missouri should simply apply its own law and ignore the law of other states and territories. Such contentions were apparently too outlandish for even determined slaveholders to make in the 1820s and 1830s.

I’m sure that you know where I am going by now. In the early 1850s, all this will change. In installments to follow, I will discuss the Supreme Court of Missouri’s decision in Scott v. Emerson, 15 Mo. 576, 1852 WL 4171 (1852). The United States Supreme Court’s later decision in Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), is far more famous (or infamous); but it is the decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri – reversing almost thirty years of state law – that made the later decision necessary – and possible.

Nat v. Ruddle II: The Instruction Was Reasonable

As I explained in my first post on this case, the trial judge had instructed the jury that, “if the defendant [Ruddle] took the plaintiff [Nat] into Illinois and used him there as a slave or permitted him to be used as such, then they should find for the plaintiff.” Justice George Tompkins, writing for a unanimous court, found this instruction sufficient. He began by explaining the general rule established by the court’s earlier cases:

“It has often been decided in this court, that to entitle a slave to recover in an action of this kind, the slave must abide in the State of Illinois, by and with the consent, express or implied, of his owner, long enough to induce the jury to believe that the owner intended to make that country the place of the slave’s residence.”

Justice Tompkins believed that the trial court’s instruction was “even broader and more favorable to the plaintiff than the rule established by this Court” because “according to this instruction, the jury were unlimited as to time or the intention of the defendant.” In other words, the instruction downplayed the residence requirement and potentially allowed the jury to rule in Nat’s favor even if he were brought to Illinois only on a temporary basis.

The Supreme Court seemed to think that the failure of the trial court to give the instruction requested by Nat’s counsel was harmless error:

“If the visits of the defendant [sic, should be “plaintiff”] had been so frequent and his stay so long as to induce a belief that his owner intended them as a pretext for keeping the plaintiff in Illinois in violation of the constitution, the jury were authorized by the instruction given by the Circuit Court, to consider both the visits, and the labor performed, as well as the hiring proved, to go to establish the fact that the slave was taken to Illinois by his master, and there used as a slave.”

In short, the instruction as a whole was reasonable, and Nat had a fair trial:

“The jury had before them the whole evidence, with a correct and liberal direction from the court, and the state of the evidence is not such as to induce this court to disturb the judgment of the Circuit Court.”

Nat lost. A court struggling to avoid this result might have seen unfairness in the trial court’s refusal to give the additional instruction, because the instruction given suggested that Nat had to show that his owner had taken him to Illinois. On the other hand, nothing in the decision suggests that the Supreme Court of Illinois was backing away from its commitment to apply Illinois law, and to do so in relatively generous fashion, if not literally. One suspects that the judges thought that there was a reasonable likelihood that Nat had gone to Illinois without permission, in which case heroic efforts to grant him a new trial were inappropriate.

Nat v. Ruddle I: The Facts

The crucial facts in Nat v. Ruddle, 3 Mo. 400, 1834 WL 2555 (1834), were hotly contested. The parties apparently agreed that Nat was originally Ruddle’s slave in Missouri until 1829; and that in 1829 Ruddle moved from Missouri to Illinois and “left the plaintiff Nat hired out in Missouri.” But there, the stories diverged.

Ruddle claimed that Nat “ran away from Missouri and went to Illinois, and was frequently at his master’s house on visits to the family. By both plaintiff and defendant, evidence was given that plaintiff hired himself out in Illinois; but there was no evidence that Ruddle received the hire.”

Nat, in contrast, contended that “he was employed on the farm of the defendant in the State of Illinois, to which place he was brought from Missouri, and after staying some time in Illinois he was sent back to Missouri.” In the alternative, Nat seems to have suggested a more subtle scenario. In this version, Nat left Missouri without permission and went to Ruddle’s farm in Illinois “on a visit.” When Ruddle discovered him there, Ruddle did not object and instead put him to work and hired him out.

Nat filed his suit for freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County. The trial court charged the jury that they should find in Nat’s favor if “they believe that the defendant took the plaintiff into the State of Illinois and used him as a slave there or permitted him to be used as such.” On the other hand, if they believed Ruddle’s story, they should find for him. “[I]f the plaintiff went into that State [Illinois] on a mere voluntary visit, or ran away from Missouri to that State, he would not thereby be entitled to his freedom.”

Neither of the instructions precisely addressed the alternate factual scenario advance by Nat. Nat’s lawyer asked the judge to instruct the jury that, if they believed this account, they should rule for Nat:

“The counsel of the plaintiff then asked the court instruct the jury that if they found that the plaintiff went on a visit to the master’s house and the master made no objection to such visit to Illinois, but employed him in planting corn and harvesting in Illinois and permitted the plaintiff to hire himself to labor in that State, they ought to find for the plaintiff.”

The trial judge declined to give this instruction. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Ruddle. Nat appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri.