Editing Tadeusz Kościuszko (section)

===Disposition of American estate===
{{main|Wills of Tadeusz Kościuszko}}

Before Kościuszko left for France, he collected his back pay, wrote a will, and entrusted it to Jefferson as executor.<ref name="Herbst437"/><ref name=Gardner124/> Kościuszko and Jefferson had become close friends by 1797 and thereafter corresponded for twenty years in a spirit of mutual admiration. Jefferson wrote that "He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known."<ref>[[#TJF|Jefferson Foundation: T. Kosciuszko]], essay.</ref> In the will, Kościuszko left his American estate to be sold to buy the freedom of black [[Slavery in the United States|slaves]], including Jefferson's own, and to educate them for independent life and work.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-30-02-0230 | title=Founders Online: Will of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, 5 May 1798 }}</ref><ref>[[#Sulkin|Sulkin. 1944]], p. 48.</ref>

Several years after Kościuszko's death, Jefferson, aged 77, pleaded an inability to act as executor due to age<ref name=Stotozynski>[[#Storozynski2009|Storozynski, 2009]], p. 280.</ref> and the numerous legal complexities of the bequest. It was tied up in the courts until 1856.<ref>[[#Nash2012|Nash, Hodges, Russell, 2012]], p. 218.</ref> Jefferson recommended his friend [[John Hartwell Cocke]], who also opposed slavery, as executor, but Cocke likewise declined to execute the bequest.<ref name=Stotozynski/>

The case of Kościuszko's American estate reached the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] three times.{{#tag:ref|Associate Justice [[Joseph Story]] issued a decision to remand in ''Armstrong v. Lear'', 25 U.S. 12 Wheat. 169 169 (1827), based on failure to submit the will for probate. The same estate was also the subject of ''Estho v Lear'', 32 U.S. 130 (7 Pet. 130, 8 L.Ed. 632)(1832), in which Chief Justice [[John Marshall]] wrote a brief opinion suggesting remand, apparently to Virginia. Finally, the decision in ''Ennis v. Smith'', 55 U.S. 14 How. 400 400 (1852) mentions no individual author; the chief justice was [[Roger Taney]], and the only jurisdictions mentioned were those of [[Maryland]], the [[District of Columbia]], and [[Grodno]].<ref name="ennis"/> |group="note"}} Kościuszko had made four wills, three of which postdated the American one.<ref name=berk>[[#Yiannopoulos|Yiannopoulos, 1958]], p. 256.</ref>

None of the money that Kościuszko had earmarked for the [[manumission]] and education of [[African Americans]] in the United States was ever used for that purpose.<ref>[[#Storozynski2009|Storozynski, 2009]], p. 282.</ref> Though the American will was never carried out as defined, its legacy was used to found an educational institute at [[Newark, New Jersey]], in 1826, for African Americans in the United States. It was named for Kościuszko.<ref name=Gardner183/><ref>[[#Nash2012|Nash, Hodges, Russell, 2012]], p. 241.</ref>