tion of her slaves, whom she had brought to New York, with such zest and conscientious conviction that those colored persons were standing in their own light when they de clined to be remanded to the delights and advantages of the state in which they had been. Mr. O'Conor first appeared as a champion of slavery in 1835, when he was only thirtyone years old, in the case of the slave Jack (12 Wend. 311; 14 id. 507). It was there held, by the Supreme Court, that where a slave eseapes from one state into another, and is pursued by his owner, and brought before a magistrate, who, in pursuance of the act of Congress, examines into the mat ter, and certifies that the slave owes service or labor to the owner, and grants permission to carry him back, the claimant may not be prevented from removing him by a writ de homine replegiando sued out under author ity of a state law. The Count of Errors unan imously affirmed this, solely on the ground that the plaintiff, having by his pleas ad mitted his slavery and escape, the defendant was entitled to judgment, declining to pass on the constitutionality of the act of Con gress or the State statute. The case is worthy of study as an example of the intri cacy and the foolishness of special pleading in the old times, when a question of plead ing seemed more important to the courts than the question of a human being's right to his own freedom. Senator Bishop remarked that if " all the States in the Union are to be permitted to legislate upon this subject," " it will in the end lead indirectly to the abolition of slavery, and that the most fearful consequences in regard to the permanency of our institutions will ensue. I regard this as but the enter ing wedge to other doctrines which are de signed to extirpate slavery; and we may find, when it is too late, that the patience of the South, however well founded upon prin ciple, from repeated aggression will become exhausted." Me cited a decision from Pick
ering to sustain his argument. But he also said : " Slavery is abhorred in all nations where the light of civilization and refinement has penetrated, as repugnant to every prin ciple of justice and humanity, and deserving the condemnation of God and man." He based his opinion solely on the ground of the constitutional compact. I am informed by a gentleman, who was at the time a partner of Mr. Sedgwick, who sued out the writ, that Mr. Sedgwick "thought O'Conor very bitter in his pursuit of the slave." But we get Mr. O'Conor's mature and personal opinions of slavery more clearly in the Lemmon case. He entered into and argued this celebrated cause con amore. The case was argued in the Court of Appeals in 1860, and is reported in 20 New York, 562.1 The facts were these : The plaintiff's wife, a citizen of Virginia, intending to go to the State of Texas, came to New York to embark, and brought with her eight negro slaves, her property. She intended to re main there only long enough to find a pro per ship, and intended to take the slaves with her. One " Louis Napoleon," a "marksman," sued out habeas corpus to re lease them from the detention of their mis tress. This was based directly on the New York statutes of 1817, 1830, and 1841, to the effect that any slave " imported, intro duced, or brought into " this state, shall im mediately become free. The contention on the part of the slave-owner was that the phrase " brought into " signified a bringing with intent to remain and reside, and that under the federal constitution slave-owners had the right to preserve their property in 1 The slow and stately progress of justice in those days is curiously illustrated by the history of this case. The slaves were released by the judge who granted the writ in November, 1852. This was affirmed by the general term in December, 1857. The case was finally decided by the Court of Appeals in March, 1860. Mrs. Lemmon's riches must have taken to themselves legs long before even a decision in her favor could have done her anygood. The case was held " under advisement " by the general term five years!
