Harry v. Decker & Hopkins

Harry v. Decker & Hopkins (1818) was a freedom suit in which the Supreme Court of Mississippi ruled that the three slaves in the case were freed based on prior residence in the Northwest Territory, established as free in 1787. Mississippi's court was the first in the South to rule on this issue and created a precedent in transit cases that was widely observed by slave state courts.

In response to a challenge related to Virginia having ceded this territory and the defendant asserting this protected the status of slavery in the region, the court held that any state may, through its constitution, prohibit slavery within its boundaries, and also through its legislature (as Indiana had done), when not constrained by the United States Constitution. Specifically, it recognized that slaves residing in the Northwest Territory became freemen per congressional passage of the Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in the territory, and could assert their rights in the state of Mississippi's courts.