70 INTRODUCTION. 



sons unlawfully claimed by virtue of the constitution of the United States as 

 fugitives from service in other slates, the legislature extended to those claimed 

 as such fugitives the privilege of a jury to try the question of servitude. In 

 1841, a law, which until then had been in force, permitting persons from other 

 states, traveling within this state, to exercise rights as masters over slaves attend- 

 ing them, for a period not exceeding nine months, was repealed ; and about the 

 same time the executive authority decided that the state could not surrender, as 

 a fugitive from justice, a person charged with stealing a slave as property ; be- 

 cause this state could not admit that by the force of any human constitution or 

 laws, one human being could become the property of another. 



Robert E,. Livingston filled the office of chancellor from 1777 to 1801 ; John 

 Lansing junior, from 1801 to 1814; James Kent, from the latter year to 1823 ; 

 Nathan Sanford, from that period to 1826, when Samuel Jones was appointed, 

 who, in 1828, gave place to Reuben H. Walworth, the present chancellor. 



The office of chief justice was, in 1777, assigned to John Jay, who was suc- 

 ceeded in 1779 by Richard Morris, who performed its duties until 1790, when 

 Robert Yates was appointed. His successor was John Lansing junior, who held 

 the office from 1798 to 1801, when the office devolved upon Morgan Lewis, who 

 was, in 1804, succeeded by James Kent, who being appointed chancellor in 

 1814, resigned the office of chief justice, and was succeeded by Smith Thomp- 

 son, afterwards secretary of the navy, and now one of the judges of the supreme 

 court of the United States. Ambrose Spencer was appointed chief justice in 

 1819, and in 1823 was succeeded by John Savage, who resigned in 1837, and 

 Samuel Nelson, the present chief justice, was thereupon appointed. The fol- 

 lowing persons have filled the offices of justices of the supreme court, and were 

 appointed in the order in which they are named : Robert Yates, John SIoss Ho- 

 bart, John Lansing junior, Morgan Lewis, Egbert Benson, James Kent, John 

 Cozine, Jacob Radcliff, Brockholst Livingston, Smith Thompson, Ambrose Spen- 

 cer, Daniel D. Tompkins, William W. Van Ness, Joseph C. Yates, Jonas Piatt, 



