Caleb v. Field

The Chief Justice

delivered the Opinion of the Court in this case, at the last Fall Term; but the decision was afterwards suspended, for further consideration, and was not made final till this day.

James Quertermus, senior, being the owner of several slaves, devised them to his surviving wife, with express authority to dispose of them as she should choose at her death. Afterwards, she died, and, by her last will, regularly executed and established, she emancipated one of those slaves named Caleb. Some time after the death of the testatrix, Caleb was sold under an execution issued on a judgment…