Ralph, an enslaved man from Missouri, bought his freedom from J. Montgomery in 1834 so he could work in the lead mines near Dubuque, agreeing to pay $550 plus interest, but after five years he had not earned enough to make the payments. Two bounty hunters from Virginia, after obtaining the proper paperwork, seized Ralph to return him to Montgomery for $100, but Iowa farmer Alexander Butterworth learned what was happening and went to local judge Thomas Wilson. Wilson stopped the men and directed that the matter be heard by the Supreme Court of the Territory, where he served. On July 4, 1839, Iowa's three high court justices ruled in Ralph's favor, deciding that he should pay his debt but that no man in the territory could be reduced to slavery and that Montgomery had lost his right over Ralph in Iowa. In Re the Matter of Ralph, the first ruling handed down by the Iowa Supreme Court and issued more than seven years before Iowa became a state, confirmed Iowa as a free territory and became the first of many high court rulings that preserved and advanced freedom, equality, and diversity within its borders. In 1847, the Iowa Legislature embraced those causes by adopting the state motto, "Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain."