OUT NOW!
The personal and legal struggle of eight enslaved people for freedom in New York in the period just before the Civil War.
The Eight tells the story of Lemmon v. New York—or, as it’s more popularly known, the Lemmon Slave Case. All but forgotten today, it was one of the most momentous civil rights cases in American history. There had been cases in which the enslaved had won their freedom after having resided in free states, but the Lemmon case was unique, posing the question of whether an enslaved person can win freedom by merely setting foot on New York soil—when brought there in the keep of an “owner.” The case concerned the fates of eight enslaved people from Virginia, brought through New York in 1852 by their owners, Juliet and Jonathan Lemmon. The Eight were in court seeking, legally, to become people—to change their status under law from objects into human beings. The Eight encountered Louis Napoleon, the son of a slave, an abolitionist activist, and a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, who took enormous risks to help others. He was part of an anti-slavery movement in which African-Americans played an integral role in the fight for freedom. The case was part of the broader judicial landscape at the time: If a law was morally repugnant but enshrined in the Constitution, what was the duty of the judge? Should there be, as some people advocated, a “higher law” that transcends the written law? These questions were at the heart of the Lemmon case. They were difficult and important ones in the 1850s—and, more than a century and a half later, we must still grapple with them today.
⇒ Judge Rosenblatt has participated in several talks and events on the topic of his book and this important, though lesser-known, case. Watch now!
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This article, published in 2006 in the Society’s scholarly journal Judicial Notice, succinctly highlights how the case traveled through the New York courts from 1852 to 1860, with an appeal to the New York Court of Appeals. Throughout the appeals process, New York’s courts sided with the formerly enslaved women and children, going so far as to rule against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott. The author also provides context to New York’s path toward the emancipation of enslaved people in the State.