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Correspondence of the Journal of Commerce.
THE CAPTIVES OF THE AMISTAD.
Washington City, Feb. 24, 1841
Mr. Adams spoke to-day about three hours and a half, and paused for the Court
to adjourn. I have copious notes of the whole, covering 50 post pages, not written
very compactly, it is true, but sufficient to enable me, I hope, to give hereafter
a tolerable view of the whole argument. Of course you will not expect from me aught
beyond a meagre skeleton of the performance, which, I may say, has surpassed the
most raised expectations in regard to its interest and power, and the skill with
which the argument has been carried forward to its object. His exordium was in something
like the following words:
May it please your Honors--
In rising to address this Court, as one of its attorneys and counsellors, regularly
admitted at a great distance of time, I feel that an apology might well be expected
for my appearance where I shall perhaps be more likely to exhibit at once the infirmities
of age and the inexperience of youth, than to render those services to the individuals
whose lives and liberties are at the disposal of this Court which I would most earnestly
desire to render. But as I am unwilling to employ one moment of the Court in anything
that regards my own personal situation, I shall reserve what few observations I may
think necessary to offer as an apology, till the close of my argument on the merits
of the question.
I therefore proceed immediately to say, that in a consideration of this case, I derive,
in the distress I feel both for myself and my clients, consolation from two sources;
first, that the rights of my clients to their lives and liberties have already been
defended by my learned friend and colleague in so able and complete a manner as leaves
me scarcely any thing to say, and I feel that such full justice has been done to
their interests, that any fault or imperfection of mine will be merely attributed
to its true cause; and secondly, I derive consolation from the thought that this
Court is a Court of JUSTICE. And in saying so very trivial a thing, I should not
on any other occasion, perhaps, be warranted in asking the Court to consider what
Justice is. Justice, as defined in the Institutes of Juctician, nearly 2000 years
ago, and as it is felt and understood by all who understand human relations and human
rights, is
“Constans et perpetua voluntas, jus SUUM cuique tribuere.”
“A constant and perpetual will to render TO EVERY ONE that which is his own.”
And in a Court of Justice, where there are two parties present, justice demands that
the rights of each party should be allowed to himself, as well as that each
party has a right, to be secured and protected by the Court. This observation is
important, because I appear here on behalf of thirty-six individuals, the life and
the liberty of every one of whom depends on the decision of this Court. The Court,
therefore, I trust, in deciding this case, will form no lumping judgment on
these thirty-six individuals, but will act on the consideration that the life and
the liberty of every one one of them must be determined by its decision.
They are here, individually, under very different circumstances, and in very different
characters. Some are in one predicament, some in another. In some of the proceedings
by which they have been brought into the custody, and under the protection of this
Court, thirty-two or three of them have been charged with the crime of murder. Three
or four of them are female children, incapable in the judgment of our laws of the
crime of murder or piracy, or perhaps, of any other crime. Yet, from the day when
the vessel was taken possession of by one of our naval officers, they have all been
held as close prisoners, now for the period of eighteen long months, under custody
and by authority of the Courts of the United States. I trust, therefore, that before
the ultimate decision of this Court is established, its honorable members will pay
due attention to the circumstances and condition of every individual concerned.
When I say I derive consolation from the consideration that I stand before a Court
of Justice, I am obliged to take this ground, because, as I shall show, another Department
of the Government of the United States has taken, with reference to this case, the
ground of utter injustice, and these individuals for whom I appear, stand before
this Court, awaiting their fate from its decision, under the array of the whole Executive
power of this nation against them, in addition to that of a foreign nation. And here
arises a consideration, the most painful of all others, in considering the duty I
have to discharge, in which, in supporting the motion to dismiss the appeal, I shall
be obliged not only to investigate and submit to the censure of this Court, the form
and manner of the proceedings of the Executive in this case, but the validity and
the motive of the reasons assigned for its interference in this unusual manner in
a suit between parties for their individual rights. At an early period of my life,
it was my fortune to witness one of the tragedies of the great dramatist of England,
I may say the great dramatist of the world, where I heard a character, heaping reproaches
upon Cardinal Wolsey, in the moment of his disgrace and loss of favor with his sovereign
; and another checks him saying, “O, my Lord, press not a falling man too far.” I
was struck with the sentiment, and have ever looked upon it as a lesson of morals,
which I hope to carry to my grave.
It is peculiarly painful to me, under present circumstances, to be under the necessity
of arraigning before this Court and before the civilized world, the course of the
existing Administration in this case. But I must do it. That Government is still
in power, and this subject to the control of the Court, the lives and liberties of
all my clients in its hands. And if I should pass over the course it has pursued,
those who have not had an opportunity to examine the case, and perhaps the Court
itself, might decide that nothing improper had been done, and that the parties I
represent had not been wronged by the course pursued by the Executive. In making
this charge, or arraignment, as defensive of the rights of my clients, I now proceed
to an examination of the correspondence of the Secretary of State, with the ambassador
of her Catholic Majesty, as officially communicated to Congress, and published among
the national documents.
Mr. Adams then commenced a “searching operation,“ of unequalled skill and thoroughness,
into the proceedings of the Executive, with the reasons assigned. In the letter of
Mr. Forsyth, Dec. 18, 1839, in defending the course of the Government against the
reproaches heaped upon it by the Spanish Minister, He says that all the proceedings
of the government judi[cial and executive], have been grounded on the [assumption
] that Ruiz and Montez were alone the parties aggrieved. I ask your honors,
said Mr. A., is this justice? The Secretary proceeds to describe the sympathy which
actuated Lieut. Gedney and his officers and men, towards the Spanish gentlemen suffer[...]
[There is a portion torn off here.]
[...]Here was the motive of the United States for appearing as a party in this
suit. And that motive is not justice, it is sympathy with one party, against the
other. With too much reason does he call this sympathy national, and it is against
this sympathy that I must call upon even this Court to restrain itself--in the name
of justice. One of the judges who presided in some of the preceding trials, is said
to have called this an anamalous case. It is anamalous, said Mr. A. and I
know of no law, but one which I am not at liberty to argue before this court, no
law, statute or constitution, no code, no treaty, applicable to the proceeding of
the Executive or the Judiciary, except that law--(pointing with tremendous emphasis
to a copy of the Declaration of Independence, hanging against one of the pillars
of the court-room,) that law, two copies of which are ever before the eyes of your
honors. I know of no other law that reaches the case of my clients, but that law
of Nature and of nature’s God, on which our fathers placed our own national existence.
The circumstances are so peculiar, that no code or treaty has provided for such a
case. That law, in its application to the case of my clients, I trust will be the
law on which the case will be decided by this court.
In commenting upon the first seizure of the vessel, he quoted the Senate Resolutions,
(Calhoun’s) of last session, and said, admitting those principles to be true, to
what nation did the Amistad belong when taken possession of by the officers of the
United States? The Africans were in possession, and had the presumptive right of
ownership, they were in peace with the United States, the courts have decided, and
truly, that they were not pirates, they were on a voyage to their own native homes,
their dulces Argos , they had acquired the right, and so far as their knowledge
extended they had the power of prosecuting the voyage, the ship was theirs, and being
in immediate communication with the shore, was I believe in the territory of the
State of New York, or, if not, at least half of the number were actually on the soil
of New York, and entitled to all the provisions of the Law of Nations, and to the
protection and aid and comfort which the laws of that State secure to every human
being within her limits. In this situation Lt. Gedney, without any charge or authority
from his government, without warrant of law, by force by fire-arms, seizes and disarms
them, then being in the peace of the Commonwealth and of the United States, drives
them on board the vessel, seizes the vessel and transfers it against the will of
its possessors to another State. I ask in the name of justice, by what law was this
done? Even admitting that it had been a case of actual piracy, which your courts
have properly found it was not, there are questions arising here of the deepest interest
to the liberties of the people of this Union, and especially of the State of New
York. Have the officers of the U.S. Navy a right to seize men by force on the territory
of New York, to fire at them, to overpower them, to disarm them, to put them on board
of a vessel and carry them by force and against their will to another State, without
warrant or form of law? I am not arraigning Lt. Gedney, but I ask this Court, in
the name of justice, to settle it in their minds, by what law it was done, and how
far the principle it embraces is to be carried.
In commenting upon the demands first made by the Spanish Minister, DonCalderon de
la Barca, Mr. A. adverted to the illustrious standing of his name in the Spanish
annals, and to his own friendly relations with him while a resident of this country,
and begged to be understood as not intending to treat him personally with disrespect
while he examined his demands, as they ought to appear in the eyes of an American
Executive or an American Court. M. Calderon then demands, 1, that the vessel shall
be delivered to her owner--who was killed ; 2, that it should be declared by the
President that no Court could try the negroes, but that he should keep them safely
and send them to Cuba for punishment ; 3, that they should be delivered up to their
owners, or the latter indemnified. In what position does he place the President of
the United States ? First, he is to turn jailor and keep these men safely and then
to become a tip-staff and carry them to Cuba, to be tried by the slave holders of
the Barracoons. Was ever such a demand made upon a civilized government ? If the
President had arbitrary and unlimited power he could not satisfy all these demands.
And if he could send 40 Africans beyond the seas by his own lettres de cachet
, he could send forty American citizens as well by the same power.
In commenting upon Article 9, of the treaty of 1795, on which the United States Government
has rested its claim for the restoration of these Africans as merchandise rescued
out of the hands of robbers ; he said he spoke of his own knowledge with regard to
the objects of the Article, having himself negotiated the revisal and renewal of
this very treaty, in 1819, and there was never such an idea passed between him and
the Spanish minister of that day, as that this clause was to include persons as merchandise.
The Courts below have decided that they have no right to consider these Africans
as pirates and robbers. If the sympathies of the government and the nation had been
impartial, in what light would Ruiz and Montes have appeared. These Africans had
been torn from their country, shipped at Lomboko, against the laws of Spain, against
the laws of the United States, against the laws of Nations,--as far as the United
States, and Spain and Great Britain were concerned,--they were in fact and in law
on the continuation of the original voyage, they were in a perishing condition, dropping
dead from day to day, no less than sixteen having died of the treatment they received
from Ruiz and Montes before they reached our shores, while during the last fourteen
months not one has died in an American prison. The moment they were restored to the
absolute wants of human nature, furnished by the tenderness of our laws, the mortality
ceased, and they have enjoyed perfect health. At the great day of accounts, said
Mr. A., who is to be responsible for the souls of those sixteen men that died. Ruiz
claims them as his merchandise. Who, in the closing hour of his life, would have
those sixteen passing before his eyes and exclaiming, “Let me sit heavy on thy soul
to-morrow.” Who, then, were the oppressors and robbers from whom this vessel was
rescued ? Certainly not Montes and Ruiz.
The article cannot apply to human beings. It says the ships and merchandise shall
be restored entire . Is that treaty made between cannibal nations, and does
it intend to stipulate that when human merchandise is restored, the legs and arms
shall not be cut off? This single word “entire” is sufficient to exclude human beings
from the scope of the Article. But it says merchandise, rescued from robbers. Who
are the robbers, and what is the merchandise ? According to the construction of the
Spanish minister, the merchandise is the robbers, and the robbers are the merchandise
; the merchandise was rescued out of its own hand, and the robbers were rescued out
of the hand of the merchandise. These Africans are themselves the robbers out of
whose hand they themselves have been rescued. Is this the meaning of the treaty?
With regard to Article 10 of the treaty ; he showed that if it applied to any party,
it was to the Africans, who were in possession of the ship, and who were pursuing
a lawful voyage, while that of Ruiz and Montez was clearly unlawful. The treaty
says they shall be treated as our own citizens. Suppose the case had been an American
vessel, a Baltimore clipper, fitted out for the African slave trade, and had performed
its voyage, directly or indirectly, and with fifty-four African victim on board,
had been taken possession of by our cruisers, how would our own citizens have been
treated ? The captain would have been seized and hung. No appeal before this
Court could have saved him. Is that the provision of the 10th Article, which is sought
to be applied in behalf of Ruiz and Montez? Perhaps it would be a nearer reward for
their merits than the restoration of these poor negroes to their power would be,
or any other act enabling them to complete their voyage.
But I must pause. You have a small specimen of the manner in which the whole three
hours were occupied. More like it to-morrow.
J. L.
