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"The Captives of The Amistad,"
New York Journal of Commerce, 23 Feb. 1841.
Washington City, Feb.23 1841
Mr. Baldwin, in opening his argument said that in appearing on behalf of these humble
Africans, whom he represented, and who are contending for freedom and life, with
two powerful governments arrayed against them, it was a source of high gratification
that the question will be heard and tried which is elevated high above the influence
of Executive power or popular prejudice. By its very constitution, it is exempt from
all the imputations, to which under other circumstances Courts are subject, imputations
such as he regretted to say, have been most unjustly cast, in certain quarters, on
the Hon. Judge of the District Court in Connecticut, before whom this cause was first
tried . In a case of this kind, involving the destiny of thirty-six unhappy men,
cast by Providence on our shores, under circumstances calculated to excite the sympathies
of all to whom the facts were truly known, he was very sorry that attempts should
have been made, here, on the very eve of the trial before the Court of dernier resort,
to disturb the course of justice, by appeals to local prejudices and sectional interests
, and especially that even the official gazette of the government had stooped to
publish imputations upon judicial functionaries, and appeals to prejudice, represented
as coming from one of the most commanding minds of the country, calculated to impair
the confidence of our own and other nations in the purity and impartiality of this
high tribunal. And, what seemed still more grievous, that the accredited minister
of a foreign government should, on the very day in which it was expected that this
case would come to a hearing before the Judiciary, communicate to the Executive Department
of our government, an article from a Spanish newspaper, to have it published to the
world, charging upon these unfortunate men the most atrocious crimes, with the intent
to have them regarded as monsters in human shape. I do not mention these things,
said Mr. B., because I fear their effect upon this Court, but because it is my duty
thus publicly to reprobate a course of proceeding calculated to impair that just
confidence which the country has ever been accustomed to repose in the decisions
of this Court.
This case, said he, is one of deep interest, from its circumstances, and is felt
as such throughout our whole country, and almost through the civilized world, so
extensively have the circumstances become known. But it has an interest on other
grounds to our own citizens. It has perverted the question of power on the part of
the Executive, in a manner that has filled men in one portion of the country with
alarm and anxiety. It is the first time since the government was formed, founded
as it is on the principles of the revolution; that all men are created equal, and
have from their Creator certain inalienable rights, formed expressly to establish
justice, it is the first time that the Executive has appeared in court, litigating
and appealing from court to court, to consign human beings to slavery. Can the government
thus appear before the courts for such an object? I deny it, and trust the courts
will not sanction the interference.
In discussing the case, he said he would not appeal . . . [indecipherable text] .
. .with questions which properly belong to another. He had not come here to address
the court on topics calculated to excite the prejudice or wound the feelings of any.
At the same time, he was in favor of the broadest liberty of inquiry and discussion,
although that liberty ought always to be guided by discretion and tempered with kindness.
Before proceeding to argue the motion to dismiss the appeal of the United States,
he would advert to the facts, as they appear on the record. It appears that the schooner
Amistad arrived in the waters of the United States, in Long Island Sound, in the
possession of the appellees, who are all admitted on the record to be native Africans,
recently from Africa. The papers of the vessel show that when she left Havana, there
were on board of her, fifty -four passengers, of whom the appellees were a
part, who were taken on-board as slaves, as slaves under the color of two custom
house permits, describing them by Spanish names, and as the property of Ruiz and
Montes. They were libeled as property by Lt. Gedney, and claimed as property by Ruiz
and Montes, and all the parties in interest were thus regularly before the court,
by admiralty proceeding, in a condition to litigate their respective claims. In this
stage of the case, the United States come in and allege that the Spanish Minister
had made a demand,&c,, "which claim was now pending upon the United States,"
and prying the Court, if the slaves were found to be the property of Spanish subjects,
to do what was necessary to keep the public faith inviolate, or if they should be
found to have been brought in by an infraction of our laws against the slave trade,
then that they should be delivered to the President to be sent back, or to the Court
after a patient investigation, found the fact to be, in all material points, as had
been set forth in the plea of the Africans, and that they were entitled to be free;
but as it appeared that Ruiz and Montes, in steering the vessel for the United States,
had in view the preservation of their property in the slaves, it was adjudged that
they were guilty of violating the Slave Trade Act, and so the Africans were placed
at the disposal of the President. The claim of Lieu. Gedney was dismissed, and that
of Ruiz and Montes, with costs, and the first part of the claim of the United States.
From this decree neither Gedney, nor Ruiz and Montes, nor the Spanish minister acting
for them, has taken an appeal. Nobody has appealed but the United States.
The Spanish minister never was a party before the Court. He had made a demand upon
the Executive, not for the delivery of the Africans as property , but for their surrender
as criminals. He had protested against the right of the Courts to hold jurisdiction
over the case, and so far from having requested the Government to litigate the question
of property, he confined his argument solely to the duty of the United States to
transmit them to Cuba for punishment. The first letter of M. Calderon, in which the
demand was made, not only insists that the negroes should be sent to Cuba for punishment,
but he goes into an argument to show how much less salutary will be the effect if
they are executed here, of which he seemed to entertain no doubt unless they are
sent to Cuba. Not a word in the litter intimates a demand for their surrender as
property. He every where keeps up a distinction between the vessel and cargo,
and the negroes. Throughout the correspondence, as communicated by the President,
both M. Calderon and M. Agair protest against the jurisdiction of the our Courts,
and yet the learned Attorney General argues here as if it were the Spanish minister,
through the District Attorney, who was prosecuting these suits.
Now, says Mr. B., what has become of Ruiz and Montes? They submitted to the jurisdiction
of the District Court. No principle is better settled in Admiralty practice, than
that a party in court is bound by the decree unless he appeals. The question whether
these Africans are the property of Ruiz and Montes, lies at the foundation of all
the proceedings, at the foundation of the claim of the United States; the District
Court have decided that the property is not in Ruiz and Montes, and they have acquiesced,
by not taking an appeal.
What right had the Executive to interfere? The whole case was fully in the hands
of the judiciary, it was the duty of the Court to decide, and to see that justice
was done, the parties in interest were all there- where, [ ] the is the law which
authorizes the Executive to interfere, to appear before our judicial tribunals, and
make himself a party in questions involving individual right. Is not the judiciary
sovereign in its sphere, and is it not the appropriate department, so recognized
and established by the very treaty of 1795, to investigate and determine the question
of property and ownership. Was it ever heard of before, that the Executive should
interfere to stimulate the courts to their duty. What does this appeal of the United
States p[ ]in issue? This Court has decided that as an appeal they will take no notice
of any point in the case, not out in issue by the party taking the appeal. The lib[
] of the United States alleges nothing only the fact that the Spanish Minister has
demanded that the negroes be given up as property of Spanish subjects, that the libel
does not allege that the Africans are slaves or are such property. In the case of
the Exchang[ ] in Dallas' reports,the U. S. Attorney filed a suggestion that the
vessel seated was a public armed vessel of a power with which we were at peace, and
the Court thereupon determined that it had no jurisdiction over such a case. But
this is a case of private litigation and as to all the parties interest, it is definitely
settled by the decree of the Court below. The question of freedom or slavery is so
settled, as between the Africans and Ruiz and Montes, the only persons it was ever
pretended had a right of property in them.
Look at the consequences of this interference. Ruiz and Montes are mulcted in costs,
in the Court below; [ ]w can they be allowed to withdraw, and the United States come
in their place and thus deprive other parties of their remedy in costs, and perhaps
damage. For it is to be observed that the United States at no cost,and are responsible
in no damages. No department of the government needs to be more carefully guarded
against Executive encroachment, than the Judiciary; for no department is less able
to protect itself. But if it is to be thus subject to Executive interference, what
becomes of the security which the framers of the Constitution aimed to effect by
the distribution of powers of government?
But suppose the Executive had the right to interfere in a private litigation as to
property, has it a right to interfere in the re-capture and surrender of fugitive
slaves who have come without wrong into the territory of [ ] free State ? Was this
the object for which the free States joined in framing our Constitution of government
? Did they ever consent to such an object ? This whole matter was wisely left to
the States AND TO THEM ALONE. The government of the Union has no power to establish
slavery in a State where it does not exist, nor to give extra-territorial force to
the slave laws of a foreign nation within the bounds of a free State. I speak not
now of cases where slaves in possession of their owners are driven into our ports
by stress of weather and remain in the possession of their owners, that the government
should interfere to set them at liberty, as was done at Bermuda. That is not the
case. These slaves did not come here in the possession of Ruiz and Montes, but in
the full possession of their liberty, with Ruiz and Montes in subjection to them.
And now the claim of the United States that the Executive is bound to enter upon
the territory of the free State of New York, by its naval officers, and seize these
men, and carry them by force into another district, and re-enslave them, for the
benefit of Spanish negro-dealers. The vessel had been taken by force out of the hands
of Spanish subjects, was not sailing under Spanish colors, had lost its national
character, and was in the full possession of the Africans. What right had Lieut.
Gedney to seize it or them? That seizure was a wrong, not to Ruiz and Montes, not
to Spain, but to the Africans, who were in possession, and had committed no crime
for which they were amenable to our authorities.
If Cinquez when he landed on the shore of New York is free by the laws of that State,
can the U.S. interfere and change his relations and make him a slave? This is on
the supposition that the Africans had been domiciled in a Spanish colony, and were
actual slaves by the laws of Spain. But the record shows that they were recently
from Africa, and therefore never were subjects to those laws. Yet we are asked as
an act of comity , to suppose that there might be some law by which they could
be held as property in Cuba. Slavery, as recognized by Admiralty courts, is purely
local, in the territory where it is established, but there is no country now where
recently imported Africans are recognized as slaves. If the U.S. could give extra-territorial
force to Spanish laws, it would not be against these Africans.
To the argument that the treaty required the surrender of "merchandize,"
Mr. B. made a most conclusive and elaborate reply. The same clause is in our treaty
with Tripoli. Would a citizen of Tripoli be allowed to hold his white slaves in our
courts under that clause ? It may be well doubted whether it was ever within the
power of the treaty-making department of our government to establish such a right.
The fraudulent nature of the transaction at the Havana Custom House, in first shipping
the negroes as ladinos with Spanish names, to evade the local laws, and then
clearing them as "passengers for the Government," to elude the British
cruisers, was strongly argued. But I cannot give even an outline of what is by general
consent acknowledged to have been one of the most complete, finished, conclusive
legal arguments ever made before that Court. I felt that it was an honor to any country
and her courts, an honor to the [ ]ence of law and to the jurisprudence of Christian
nations, that a foundation was laid for such an argument.
Mr. Baldwin closed about twenty minutes after{indecipherable text} .......illustrious
individual who was to [ ] ............... the topics in the case;--who, after having
filled the highest office in this or any nation, thought it yet a high honor to appear
in vindication of the rights of these unhappy foreigners, the honor of the country
and the character of our free institutions.
So, tomorrow, we hear Mr. Adams. During the two days, Mr. Webster, the Secretary
of State that is to be and Mr. Crittenden, the Attorney General that is to be, were
repeatedly in Court. The Court room has been well filled, and some of the time was
crowded.
J.L.
