Year: 1859

NS party tnub mas SNJ bIOlen property lying
Around loose on the high seas, and pilots it into
port, guilty as an accessory to the crime? This is
the guilt that we must confess, if we pay this de-
msnd. 1t is very we'll in national affairs to call
this q claim but if it was an individual matter,
and we were liable at ALL it would not be on app.i-
cation to pay just claim but an indictment for
receiving and concealing stolen goods. Spain
claims pay for these negroes, ne property which
had been stolen from the owners. The property was
found in our possession. We refused to dsgorge.
If the Amstad's cargo was free persons, there is
no claim on US. If property, we were pirates and
thieves. There is no legal halfway point in the
case. The latte. horn of the dilemma is the one
that the President and Senator Mason are DO.
king at the nation. 1t is an anxiety to commit
Congress to this disgraceful position that causes
the indecent haste il forcing the niger question
on il in the first day of the session.


The Amistad negroes were taken from the coast
Of Africa by SLAYER, in the usual manner OFF
the coast Of Cuba they were transferred from the
SLAYER to another vessel for conveyance to another
Island. During this passage they seized their lib
erty, rose on tie and captured the vessel
Totally Ignorant of navigation, the vessel driftcd
north in the Gulf Stream was finally overhauled
by one Of our Government surveying vessels and
taken into the port of New Haven the negroes
still rampant, fierce and heroic, and ready to die
in resisting slavery. They were demanded by the
Spanish authorities. The case was fully tried in
the United States District Court, and the negroes
declared tree. They were taken in charge by be-
nevolent persors, relieved, and sent back to their
native land.


Up to the time when these persons were trans.
ferred from the SLAYER, their pretended owners
were pirates, by the laws of all nations and by the
same laws the negroes were free persons, pratic,
ally robbed Of their rights. Did their trans
fer, from the SLAYER to another vessel, transform
pirates into legitimate and proper merchants; and
free persons into property? Did these traders
who, on one vessel were liable to the galows, be-
como innocent, and entitled to the protection of
of the law, by merely stepping from one plank to
another on the high seas? That all this wonder
full transformation took place, is the only ground
on which the payment of this claim can be justi'
fed and yet this monstrous demand has been
urged upon Congress by successive Democratic Ad-
mnstrations. If the mere transfer of stolen prop.
erty vests legal title, then the receiver Of stolen
goods is engaged in legitimate commerce.


No number of transfers of stolen property can
deprive the owner of his rights. The most ultra
pro,slavery men claim only, that negro property
should have the same rights and protection as the
other property and yet the attempt to have this
claim recognized, directly violates rights Of prop.
erty universally admitted, for it makes what is le
gally declared to be held by piracy on ono YES
sci, and held from the only owner the law recog
mixes in this stage of the case-the negroes them
selves-the property of the pirate, by mere shift
ing of cargo. This is the kind of demand that, in
the present degeneracy of the Republic, must take
precedence of all the interests of the nation. The
Republic must first be Frustrated in the dust o
humiliation before the hideous Dragon of negro
Slavery, before it's Southern masters will permit
the most urgent business Of the country 10 be at
sended.to.


But this question is o9ig the fOrlorn hope for a
grand advance Of slavery doctrine and it opens
up the anomaly in our national legislation on this
subject. We declare that taking slaves from the
coast of Africa is piracy punishable with death
we do not recognise the claim of the trader that
he purchased them from native owners at all al
though the commerce in mankind is carried on az
legally in Africa, as in the United States. Our
declaring it piracy is solely the principle, that
property cannot be acquired in man for, if it can
,be, it is palpable that slaves be acquired by
purchase, and by breeding, in Africa, as we'll as
lhere and when 70 acquired, they as legitimate
objects of commerce. from the African to the Amer
lean coast, as from one of the American States to
another, either by land or sea. The legal piracy
OF the slave trade is not founded on the idea that
the SLAYER has himself stolen the negro for it is
notorious that this is not the way they are acquired
They are purchased from their native princes
who hold them as legtimately, as slaves are held
IN these States; and even if some or nearly all OF
them were directly stolen by the trader, no law
would con6scate property Unfortunately, with,
out an investigation of its title. Therefore the in
ternatonal declaration, that the entire slave trade


from the African coast is piracy, rests entirely on
the principle of human rights, that property can.
mot be acquired in man, either by theft, purchase
or transfer. This is the law, and the principle
that our Government has proclaimed, as in force
on the high seas and so rigid are we in enforcing
II, that our cruisers even capture, and confscate
vessels on suspicion of an intention to commit the
crime; principle, too dangerous to be introduced
into the criminal practice, in any other CASE Now
where does this piracy become legal right? At
what precise poiut in its transit from the high seas
10 our own coast does this miraculous transforms.
zion take place. We refuse to recognize any claim
Of the STAKEHOLDER on the African coast although
the purchase is paid in hard doubloons and the
gonealogy OF the slave may be through innumera.
bio generations of chattels, without crossing drop
Of free blood. We set the slave free, and make a
gallows bird Of the trader. Now take the the log.
ica deductions from our national laws on this sub.
jact and what becomes Of slave property iu the
United states' II the negro is stolen property on