In 1852 Jay successfully led a team of attorneys in a freedom suit, "Lemmon v. New York," gaining the release in New York City's Superior Court of eight slaves brought to New York by their Virginia owners, who were stopping over in the city prior to sailing to relocate to Texas. New York had passed a law prohibiting slave transit. Like some other free states, New York said that slaves brought voluntarily to the state by their owners in transit would be considered free. A considerable network of black and white activists kept watch for fugitive and transit slaves and took action to free them. In the case of the Lemmon slaves, activist Louis Napoleon, one of an important trio, was alerted and gained a "habeas corpus" writ requiring them to be presented to court. Jay, Erastus D. Culver and the young Chester A. Arthur (future president of the United States) defended them. The ruling was upheld through two levels of appeals in state courts, the second ruling made in 1860. The case was never heard by the US Supreme Court, because the civil war broke out.