WILLIAMSON AND OTHERS, APPELLANTS, AGAINST DANIEL AND OTHERS, RESPONDENTS
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
In a dispute over the distribution of slaves under a will, the Supreme Court held that a testator's bequest creating an estate tail in slaves with a remainder over to a contingent heir violated the rule against perpetuities because the contingency was too remote to be enforceable. The Court affirmed the lower court's decree, establishing that slaves, as personal property, could not be subjected to the same restraints on alienation applicable to real estate, and that children born to enslaved women follow the condition of the mother unless the instrument explicitly provides otherwise.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Chief .Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court.
The first bequest to Patsy Hendrick would pass the slaves therein mentioned to her absolutely', were not this absolute estate qualified by the subsequent limitation over, if either of the testator’s grand children, Patsy-Hendrick, or Jesse Daniel Austin, should die without a lawful heir of their bodies, that the other should heir, its estate. We think these words convert the absolute estate previously given, into an estate tail; and, if so, since slaves are personal property, the limitation over is too remote.
There are no words in the will which restrain thfe dying-without issue to the time of the death of the legatee.- The remainder over is to take effect whenever either of the immediate legatees should die without a lawful heir of his or her body. The gift in remainder is a gift to the stock, and is limited over on a contingency too remote to be allowed by the policy of the law. The second point is, we believe, well settled. The issue is, we believe, universally considered as following the mother, unless they be separated from each other by the terms of the instrument which disposes of the mother. Decree affirmed, with costs.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Alberty v. United States, 162 U.S. 499 (U.S. 1896)…der the rule partus sequitur ventrem, he must be treated as a negro by birth, and not as a Choctaw Indian. There is an additional reason for this in the fact that he was an illegitimate child, and took the status of his mother. Williamson v. Daniel, 12 Wheat. 568; Fowler v. Merrill, 11 How. 375. • He came, however, to the Cherokee Nation when he was about seventeen years of age, and married a freed woman, and a citizen of that Nation. It would seem, however, from such information a's we have been able to'ob…
-
John Smith T. v. Bell, 6 Pet. 68 (U.S. 1832)
-
Hall v. United States. - United States v. Roach, 92 U.S. 27 (U.S. 1875)