er husband, had removed from
Carolina to Illinois, and brought with them the plaintiff; that they
continued to reside in Illinois three or four years, retaining the
plaintiff as a slave; after which, they removed to Missouri, taking
her with them.

The court held, that if a slave be detained in Illinois until he be
entitled to freedom, the right of the owner does not revive when he
finds the negro in a slave State.

That when a slave is taken to Illinois by his owner, who takes up his
residence there, the slave is entitled to freedom.

In the case of Lagrange [Transcriber's Note: La Grange] _v._ Chouteau,
(2 Missouri Rep., 20, at May term, 1828,) it was decided that the
ordinance of 1787 was intended as a fundamental law for those who may
choose to live under it, rather than as a penal statute.

That any sort of residence contrived or permitted by the legal owner
of the slave, upon the faith of secret trusts or contracts, in order
to defeat or evade the ordinance, and thereby introduce slavery _de
facto_, would entitle such slave to freedom.

In Julia _v._ McKinney, (3 Missouri Rep., 279,) it was held, where a
slave was settled in the State of Illinois, but with an intention on
the part of the owner to be removed at some future day, that hiring
said slave to a person to labor for one or two days, and receiving the
pay for the hire, the slave is entitled to her freedom, under the
second section of the sixth article of the Constitution of Illinois.

Rachel _v._ Walker (4 Missouri Rep., 350, June term, 1836) is a case
involving, in every particular, the principles of the case before us.
Rachel sued for her freedom; and it appeared that she had been bought
as a slave in Missouri, by Stockton, an officer of the army, taken to
Fort Snelling, where he was stationed, and she was retained there as a
slave a year; and then Stockton removed to Prairie du Chien, taking
Rachel with him as a slave, where he continued to hold her three
years, and then he took her to the State of Missouri, and sold her as
a slave.

"Fort Snelling was admitted to be on the west side of the Mississippi
river, and north of the State of Missouri, in the territory of the
United States. That Prairie du Chien was in the Michigan Territory, on
the east side of the Mississippi river. Walker, the defendant, held
Rachel under Stockton."

The court said, in this case:

"The officer lived in Missouri Territory, at the time he bought the
slave; he sent t