Francois Xavier Martin

The decision was unpopular in the South and contributed to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention's abolishing the state Supreme Court in March 1846, ending Martin's career at the age of 84.

[2] He published various legal books, edited Acts of the North Carolina Assembly from 1715 to 1803 (2nd ed., 1809), and translated Pothier's Traité des obligations.

It was an adaptation by James Brown and Louis Moreau-Lislet of the Code of Napoleon, which repealed the Spanish fueros, partidas, recompilationes, and laws of the Indies as they conflicted with its provisions.

[2] In February 1813, Martin was appointed Attorney General by the elected governor of the newly established state of Louisiana, serving until 1815.

In 1816 he published two volumes, one in French and one in English, of A General Digest of the Acts of Legislatures of the Late Territory of Orleans and of the State of Louisiana.

[2] Respected for his learning, Martin was appointed presiding judge of the State Supreme Court, serving a decade (1836–1846) in this position.

A few weeks after the family left New Orleans to work, the father and son were reported to have died, but no one knew what became of the two young girls, Dorothea, six, and Salomé four.

They arranged for an attorney to file a freedom suit for her against Miller's owners, challenging her slave status on the grounds that she was a native-born European.

Their decision in Miller v. Belmonti (1845 La) included the following statement: That on the law of slavery in the case of a person visibly appearing to be a white man, or an Indian, the presumption is he is free, and it is necessary for his adversity to show that he is a slave.

His holographic will in favor of his brother in France (written in 1841 and devising property worth nearly $400,000) was unsuccessfully contested by the state of Louisiana.