Informed of their presence in a free state, the women left Sewell but were quickly retaken and brought before the circuit court on a writ of habeas corpus.

Ray testified on the women's behalf, arguing that Sewell had forfeited all legal claim to his so-called property by traveling voluntarily to a free state.

Noble was criticized for using his office as contract commissioner for the Michigan Road to promote his campaign and for facilitating an illegal slave sale eleven years earlier.

While Noble had previously been elected to the state House of Representatives from Franklin County, his most recent service was as contract commissioner for the Michigan Road.

[8][9] In early March 1831, James Scott, who for more than a decade had served as one of the original justices of the state supreme court, asked that his name be put forward as a candidate for governor.

In a letter dated December 18, state Representative Joseph Holman informed Tipton of the nominations, though no notice appeared in published accounts of the meeting.

Tipton, however, apparently had little interest in the governorship, for he neither acknowledged nor announced his candidacy, possibly because he hoped to be elected to the United States Senate when the legislature met in 1831.

The lack of party labels made it possible for candidates to deny accusations of partisanship even while campaigning for votes on a partisan basis among their own supporters.

As his candidacy had originated with an 1830 gathering of Jacksonian officeholders, Read was denounced in the opposition press as a caucus candidate, by implication a careerist and a partisan.

Both candidates were criticized for using their official positions to promote their candidacies: Noble was still serving as contract commissioner for the Michigan Road, while Read had been appointed receiver of the federal land office at Jeffersonville.

Read came under scrutiny for allegedly using the United States Postal Service to distribute campaign materials at public expense, but denied personal involvement.

Noble countered that he had never intended to keep the woman in Indiana, and had only stopped in Brookville for a couple of days before continuing on to Kentucky; however, the court had explicitly rejected this argument in the Sewell case, when it ruled that enslaved people in transit became free upon entering the state.

Accused of facilitating an illegal slave sale, Noble responded quickly to clarify his intent had not been to introduce slavery to Indiana in violation of the state's constitution.

Yet Noble did not deny the sale itself, suggesting by implication the issue for voters was a desire to keep slavery (and African Americans) out of Indiana, and not a general concern for the welfare of Black people.