Georgia, Supreme Court, Milledgeville : Martin, a citizen of Mississippi v The Bartow Iron Works, September 1867

Summary: An action of debt for [dollars] 3,000 brought by Martin against the Bartow Iron Works. Martin exhibited a copy of an instrument signed by the superintendant of the works, T J Hightower, in 1864. The defendants pleaded failure of consideration, stating that the instrument had been executed for the hire of twenty slaves to labour at the works for the year 1864 and had provided that if the Union army should approach Bartow county then the slaves and their families would be removed to safety at Martin's expense; this contingency having happened, the slaves were removed to Macon, where they were taken into the custody of the Confederate authorities and the benefit of their hire entirely lost to the works. They also pleaded failure of consideration by virtue of the fact that the men in question were represented by Martin to be slaves when they had in fact been freed by proclamation of the president of the United States (ie the Emancipation Proclamation). The Supreme Court found that there was no evidence to show that the men, whether slaves or free, had not willingly worked for the defendant and perceived no legal distinction in the plaintiff's hiring these men to defendant, and the men hiring themselves to defendant; nor was their any evidence that the plaintiff had not performed her obligations under the contract.