As businessmen, politicians, and landowners, U.S. treaty signers were involved in hundreds of court cases, from local to federal levels. They were defense attourneys and prosecutors for the state, judges and justices of the peace, and often-agressive litigants in court cases. Treaty signers also included many slaveholders who were named in “freedom suits” by which enslaved people attempted to gain their emancipation.
Many court cases involving treaty signers were litigated before State and Territorial Supreme Courts, and some of these cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Twenty U.S. supreme court cases involving U.S. treaty signers are listed here. (This is by no means an exhaustive list.) These cases, usually related to property, slaveholding and disputes stemming from the aftermath of treaty making, include some of the most significant Supreme Court decisions in history.
When the U.S. organized a territory, a supreme court was appointed by the President. Territorial Supreme Court Justices held extensive power, effectively establishing all of the laws in the territory until a legislature was created. With the admission of territories as states, permanent Supreme Courts were established, comprised in some places of elected officials and in other places by appointees. More than 25 U.S. treaty signers held seats on the Supreme Courts of U.S, territories and states.
Before the Civil War, enslaved people in some parts of the country could petition the courts for their freedom. These cases were especially prevalent in Missouri and Washington, D.C., the two places that were also the most frequent sites of treaty signing. Consequently, U.S. treaty signers are among the slaveholders named in these suits.
