Year: 1864

things, some of which-at least-our readers
shall have in TIE STATESMAN. Here is
what he said on the Arguelles case:


This is strange enough when we consider
that those who thus act call themselves the
Union party. But there Is still a stranger
anomaly. ] cannot understand why these
gentlemen would destroy the only method
of carrying out this eXtradition system Of
our Constitution, and yet the other day,
when Spanish snbiect was arrested by our
authorities, and taken from our shores which
he sought as an asylum, these gentlemen
sustained such extraordinary action.-
Against the Constitution, without law,
without treaty, without evidence, without
jury trial, without warrant, without infor-
nation, by executive power, usurping the
treaty power, usurping the law-making
power, usurping the power OF the Judiciary,
this Administration delivered to Spain
white refugee; and this Congress, with
cringing obsequiousness, bowed before cX-
ecutive dictation and by their legislative
action said "All right, Mr.. President, you
can seize a white man and take him from
the country in defiance of the great right
of ASYLUM, but when black man, escaping
from one State to another, and whom we
are commanded by the Constitution to de-
liver up, and under the sanction of our oath
to make laws for such delivery, we break
down the constitutional clause and the laws
sanctioned by the judiciary in order to
create in the North an asylum for the blacks
of the South" When white man from
another nation is torn away, and the prac-
tice and usage of all free and civilized ma
tions is outraged, gentlemen on that side
stifle proper resolutions of condemnation.


MroMORRIS, of New York. The gentle
man will allow me to ask him a question
for information. In the case referred to by
the gentleman from Ohio, was the man
charged with crime or was he not?


Mr.. HIGBY. object to further inter-
ruptions. ..-...
Mr.. cox. say to my friend from New
York that that white man was charged
with crime in newspapers, by clamor, but
not legally. There was no charge, no war
rant no information, and no trial. defy
gentlemen to give me resolution otinquiry,
to ascertain whether the Executive or the
Secretary of State had anything in writing
but the request of the Spanish minister up
on which to base the arrest and extradition
of this Spaniard, seeking an asylum in this
| country. Upon the request of Scnor las
sara, the Spanish minister, Mr.. Seward is
sued his rescript and the man was taken
from the privacy of his own room, without
the knowledge of his wife, who was in the
next chamber. He was hurried OIL board a
steamer, was hurried off to Havana, and is
there held as criminal to be tried. Yet
uPSSHh ee qesE Becase set e Was seged
that he was engaged in some way in the
slave trade. Well, some one with less sense
than sensibility may cry out, "Oh! you are
the defender of the slave trade and slave
trader" There is only one answer to this:
the monosyllabic answer, "Pshaw." de-
fend no crime when defend the right of
asylum; nor do defend slavery when op-
pose the repeal of the constitutional law for
the rendition OF slaves.


1t has been said that this Spanish subject,
! Col. Arguelles, was engaged in the slave
trade, and hence an enemy of the human
race. The truth is that he was not engaged
in that trade. Slaves had been landed in
the district of Colon, in Cuba, under his
| jurisdiction, and those slaves, as it was al
| legged, he had sold after they were landed
and confiscated, and having made money
out of the transaction in violation of his
duty he had fled to this country. There
was no proof of all this. 1t was the only
allegation, however, and it may be true
Suppose it were. The charge is simply that
of q breach of the municipal law of Spain.
He is not, then, in the legal sense, as Mr..
Seward asserted, an enemy of the human
race. He was not pirate in any legal or
moral sense, but criminal under the laws
of Spain. He could only be delivered to
Spain under treaty or statute, and nei-
ther existed between this country and
Spain. Yet gentlemen who are becoming
so careful about the personal liberty of black
men as to refuse to render them upin pursu-
ance of the Constitution sustain the extra
dition of white man without evidence,
| law, treaty, or constitutional authority. IL
there were treaty between Spain and the
| United States similar to this authority in
our Constitution, with regard to the rendi-
| ton of black fugitives, no indignation
would ever have been hurled by hospita-
bile people, proud of their system ofasylum
under our once free Government, against
| Its present perfidious administrators. Upon


the same principle, or want of principle, by
which the Executive gave up this Spaniard,
they would have surrendered Thomas
Francis Meagher, criminal convicted by
the judicial tyranny of England, Professor
| Agassiz the savant' whom the world de-
lights to honor, and every other man OF
great or little note who comes here from
abroad.


We have had many humiliations since
| the present Administration came into pow
er. We have bowed humbly before the
throne Of the French usurper, at the beck
of an arrogant foreign minister, and allow
ed an Austrian prince and an imperial dupe
| to bear crown from Europe to our conti-
nent. and sway a scepter over a democratic
republic with which we were In friendly
alliance. We have had domestic humilia-
tions by the forcible abduction, imprison-
ment and exile of our citizens without law.
or trial, We have had our very thoughts
pinioned, our press inapaeled, and our writs
of right and liberty annulled. For all these
we place our hands upon our mouths in
shame; but for this last humiliation, by
which America Is no longer the home Of
the oppressed or the refuge Of the foreigner,
| by which we are made the Kissing and by
word of the nations, we cast our mouths In


the dust in abject degradation. We areput
to cruel shame before all civilized nations,
nay, before even half-civilized nations.


turkey once protected the Hungarian
patriot, Kossuth; Switzerland protects all
political refugees In the midst of Europe,
and stands there In her republican simplic-
| ity and faith as firm as her everlasting
mountains against the expressions around
her. We protected the half made citizen
Kotza in an Asiatic. harbor, and rescued
him from an Austrian ship; but this was
when we had d Democrat to represent us
| in our foreign affairs like William L. Mar