[cr #519] But then again, if it was decided in 1860, what bearing did it have on Dred Scott, first argued in 1856? (You refer to it as an 1857 case)
[cr #526] I remembered Lemmon was a sojourn and transit case regarding New York. And I recall there was SC case that foreshadowed. When I have time, I'll figure out which one that was.
The initial Lemmon case was The People, ex rel. Lewis Napoleon v. Lemmon, 5 Sandford (N.Y.) 681 (1852).
In 1857 a New York appeals court upheld that result in Lemmon v. The People, 26 Barbour (N.Y.) 270 (1857).
In 1860 New York's highest court affirmed the result in Lemmon v. The People, 20 N.Y. 562 (1860).
Lemmon was decided on where the slaves were when they brought suit. As they were in a free state, the law of said free state applied, and they were set free. Had they been in a slave state, such as Missouri, the law of the slave state would have been applied. When Dred Scott brought suit, he was in a slave state.
In Scott v. Sandford, Justice Nelson wrote the original Opinion of the Court but this was reassigned to Chief Justice Taney when Justice Robbins insisted on addressing all possible issues in his dissenting opinion. What had been intended as the Opinion of the Court was filed as Justice Nelson's Concurring Opinion.
The last paragraph of Justice Samuel Nelson's concurring opinion in Dred Scott appears to refer the Lemmon case, which was then winding its way through the New York courts.
A question has been alluded to, on the argument, namely: the right of the master with his slave of transit into or through a free State, on business or commercial pursuits, or in the exercise of a Federal right, or the discharge of a Federal duty, being a citizen of the United States, which is not before us. This question depends upon different considerations and principles from the one in hand, and turns upon the rights and privileges secured to a common citizen of the republic under the Constitution of the United States. When that question arises, we shall be prepared to decide it.
With regard to the case of The Slave, Grace, this is also discussed in the opinion of Justice Nelson.
Lord Stowell, in communicating his opinion in the case of the slave Grace to Judge Story, states, in his letter, what the question was before him, namely: "Whether the emancipation of a slave brought to England insured a complete emancipation to him on his return to his own country, or whether it only operated as a suspension of slavery in England, and his original character devolved on him again upon his return." He observed, "the question had never been examined since an end was put to slavery fifty years ago," having reference to the decision of Lord Mansfield in the case of Somersett; but the practice, he observed, "has regularly been, that on his return to his own country, the slave resumed his original character of slave." And so Lord Stowell held in the case.Judge Story, in his letter in reply, observes: "I have read with great attention your judgment in the slave case, &c. Upon the fullest consideration which I have been able to give the subject, I entirely concur in your views. If I had been called upon to pronounce a judgment in a like case, I should have certainly arrived at the same result." Again he observes: "In my native State, (Massachusetts,) the state of slavery is not recognized as legal; and yet, if a slave should come hither, and afterwards return to his own home, we should certainly think that the local law attached upon him, and that his servile character would be re-integrated."
With regard to Strader v. Graham, again Justice Nelson addresses that case:
We come now to the decision of this court In the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, 10 How. p. 82. The case came up from the Court of Appeals, in the State of Kentucky. The question in the case was, whether certain slaves of Graham, a resident of Kentucky, who had been employed temporarily at several places in the State of Ohio, with their master's consent, and had returned to Kentucky into his service, had thereby become entitled to their freedom. The Court of Appeals held that they had not. The case was brought to this court under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act. This court held that it had no jurisdiction, for the reason, the question was one that belonged exclusively to the State of Kentucky. The Chief Justice, in delivering the opinion of the court, observed that "every State has an undoubted right to determine the status or domestic and social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory, except in so far as the power of the States in this respect is restrained, or duties and obligations imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States, he observes, that can in any degree control the law of Kentucky upon this subject. And the condition of the negroes, therefore, as to freedom or slavery, after their return, depended altogether upon the laws of that State, and could not be influenced by the laws of Ohio. It is exclusively in the power of Kentucky to determine, for herself, whether their employment in another State should or should not make them free on their return."
The moral foundation for slavery never existed. The legal foundation continued to crumble during the first century of our county's existence, not withstanding all the attempts to prop it up. It took time to build an abolitionist sentiment, but it was building as civil war approached. It scared the crap out of the racist southern leadership like Rhett and the other fire-eaters, and their apparatchik in the Supreme Court, Taney.
Taney and the other on the Court were not forced by precedent to rule they way they did. They chose to by presenting a "gross perversion of the facts." An intellectually honest evaluation of the case would have led to a decision that would have been, in retrospect, hailed by the world (outside of the deep south) as a classic statement of human rights, instead of being characterized as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made. By foisting the Dred Scott perversion on the country, they set the stage for increased sectional conflict.