The Liberator from Boston, Massachusetts • 1

9 HI li sht d4uWKeld" ty A fl fl WMLOYD GARRISON EDITOR nb sw 3 1 is il A 4 I 1 taConnoc'M i Xv fl Yi I fl fl hi I i IsfcB' i a 1 rom the National Intelligencer A Intended to have been made in Committee of the whole House on the state of the Union House of Repre sentatives cf the United Slates on House Bill No 328 reported by the Committee on oreign JiffairsApril 10 1844 This is a bill to bestow upon certain Spanish slave traders the sum of seventy thousand dollars of the money of the people of the United States for what? A present of seventy thousand dollars of the money of the people of the United States to two Spanish slave traders! or so extraordinary a fact there must be extraordinary reasons Reasons did I say No motives pretexts and these must be found if any where in the Report of the Com mittee on oreign Affairs who reported this Bill I call the special attention of the members of that Committee who assented to report this bill to the position in which they stand before the people whom they represent as guardians of the money I assume the position that this is a bill to I give away to squander seventy thousand dollars of the money of our constituents in gratuitous dona tion to two slave traders of the Island of Cuba and to show how utterly destitute they are of all claim upon the people of the United States for money or for compassion it will be necessary for me to lay before this Committee first a brief narrative of th facts essential to thfe true understanding of the case and then to examine some of the factsand ar guments alleged in this report to justify or to palli ate the disposal of so large a sum of money of our constituents not of our own which it purposes to make On the 26th of August 1839 Lieutenant Gedney commanding the United States brig Washington took forcible possession of the vessel called the Amistad on the coast of Long Island then in the lawful possession of certain self emancipated Afri can negroes I pray the special notice of this Com mittee to the date the 26th of August 1839 Lieutenant Gedney took possession of the vessel and of the negroes some ofthem on the shore of Long Island and assuming them to be all pirates carried them into the port of New London Conncc ticut where they were arraigned first before the District Court and afterwards before the Circuit Court of the United States as pirates They were charged with murder upon the high seas Their defence was justifiable and necessary homicide in the recovery of their personal freedom The Cir cuit Court decided that it had no jurisdiction of the transaction in a foreign vessel on the high seas The Spanish Ministers Calderon and Argaiz de manded of the Executive of the United States first a proclamation forbidding i ll the judicial courts in the United States from taking any cognizance of I the case second to deliver up to them the vessel and cargo as Spanish property without allowing a dollar to the captors for salvage third all the sur viving negroes offifty threeas assassins and fourth that the President of the United States should at i their expense send all these assassins to be tried at Havana Mr Chairman I ask this Committee to pause and reflect upon these demands and to say under what Government we should have lived if it had been in the power of the President of the United States to comply with them It transcends Gen law martial second section and all He has famil iarized the country ith arbitrary dealings ith human life in every form Before his time urn American could have conceived without horror idea that a President of the United States should in time of profound peace hold in the hollow of his hand tho lives of fifty human beings without the at the disposal ofithe President they would by him at the ffinnand of the Spanish Minister himself been on excursions off into the side valley and passes? some have explored the neighboring villages some have been hunting some fishing Here at the table one can learn much of the localities around Inns bruck and of the inhabitants In one thing all agree i that they never saw a town located amid scenery so wild romantic and enchanting we have just had another storm about American sla very and the ederal Government One of my com panions or one of fhe company I should say has lived in the slave States a long time and is I suspect a slaveholder He is loud and vociferous in his de fence of now speaking in German now in rench now in English I have just asked him Do you think all men are born free was the surly reply stole those 3000000 in America and enslaved were born said he How could that be when all men are born free it mean that slaves are born said he But it does mean that none can be born I said man who will speak against his country is a traitor and a traitor ought not to be tolerated in any What shall be said of the man who like yourself pleads for the degradation and ruin of bis nature? You convert man into property and sell him as you would a dog There is not in Europe any tyranny to be compared that sanctioned and sustained by the Constitu tion and government of the United States There is but one slave auction in Europe at Constantino ple under the Turk To a slaveholding government I am an enemy and' by all bloodless and Christian means 1 shall seek its overthrow I believe the United States ederal Government has done infinite ly more hurt than good It has made the name of Liberty a hiss and a bye word throughout the We have had a great storm and all took part direct ly or through interpreters slave traders claimed them all save for their slaves Lieutenant Gedney clainied 'snlvageupon the vessel cargo and blacks as Spanish property but the Spanish Minister Argaiz and the slave traders Ruiz and Montes the much abused foreign era ail protested against the allowance of one cent of salvage to Lieutenant Gedney You perceive Mr Chairman that the claim of the Spanish Minister to the negroes as assassin was in direct collision with that of Ruizand Montes to the same negroes as their slaves The Minister demanded that the President should prohibit all ju dicial action upon the case and by his transcendent executive power should ship them off to Cuba for trial Ruizand Montes at the same time demand ed that the negroes should be delivered up to them as their slaves It was utterly impossible for the Government of the United States to comply with either of those de mands yet so intent was the Secretary of State orsyth to surrender these unfortunate wretches to their oppressors that he actually instructed the District! A ttorney Holabird first to take care that the court should not put the negroes beyond the control of the Executive and then instead of pre senting to thecourt the real demand of the Spanish Minister that the case should be wrested entirely from the jurisdiction of the court to present a claim asfromi the Spanish Minister for a decree of the court that the blacks should be delivered upas Spanish property The Spanish Minister never made any such demand but the District Attorney under instructions from the Secretary of State did and the! court decided against it The motive of Mf orsyth was apparent The Spanish Minister denied tjje jurisdiction of the court The Secre Lary of State saw that if the court should disqualify itself the blacks must be discharged the court could not place them at the disposal of the Presi dent He instructed therefore the District Attor ney to present this as a demand from the Spanish Minister and in anticipation of such an order' from? the court a small schooner was secretly sent in the dead of winter to JJJew Havcn where the court was sitting with the following order I venture to say the most extraordinary act of despotism ever signed by the President of the United States Marshal of the United States for the District of Connecticut will deliver over to Lieutenant John Payne of the United States Navy and aid in con veying on board the schooner Grampus under his command all the negroes late of the Spanish schooner Amistad in his custody under process now pending before the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut or so doing this order will be his warrant Given under my hand at the city of Washington this 7thiday of January A 1840 By the President VAN BUREN JOHN ORSYTH Secretary of This order was on its face positive sweeping unconditional No specification of persons no names not even their number all the negroes late of the Spanish schooner Amistad in his custody under process now pending before the Circuit Court of the United States VVas this order given in a country where the rights of persons are words without: meaning? In the kingdom of Dahomey In the region where the bow string is the warrant of execution It was given in the land of the Dec laration! of Independence in the land of the self evident truths It was given by a President of the United States! It was of course null and void and if before the decision of the Court it had been delivered to the Marshal and he had executed it he would have staked not only the liv of the ne groes but his own bead and that ot irtin Van Buren the signer of the order upon the event It was at first as here given null and void for anoth er reason The negroes in the custody of the Marshal were held under a process pending not before the Circuit but before the District Court of the United States and the District Attorney to whom it was sent for delivery to the Marshal sent it back by express to have the word Circuit strick en out and the word District inserted in its place which was done but whether by Mr orsyth by a clerk in the Department of State or by Mr Van Buren himself there is no trace of a record to show But although Mr Van Buren did sign this order he did not venture to follow the advice sof his Attorney General and to violate the sanctuary of the idicial authority by directing the MarshaLto execute it in defiance of that authority He had been admonished against the perpetifon of that outrage by constitutional lawyers less disciplined to the black code The District Attorney had flat tered himself and the Secretary of State that the decree of the Court would place all the negroes late of the Amistad at thealisposal of the President of the United States and he was instructed in that event instantly to put the order into the hands 'of the Marshal for execution without allowing time if he could help it for the negroes to appeal but to appeal himself if the decree of the Court should be in favor of liberty How a Connecticut lawyer could expect any other decision from a Connecticut Judge is conceivable only upon a research into the darkest recesses of party spirit The Judge decided that the negroes with one exception were not slaves but free The District Attorney appealed from the decision The order of Mr Van Buren to deliver all the negroes late of the Amistad over to Lieutenant Payne and to help him to ship them in the Grampus lor exportation was not handed to the Marshal or if it was lie did not hazard an attempt to execute it The appeal was prosecuted by the Attorney General of the United States before their Supreme Judicial Court who after full and long protracted argument with one dissenting voice for which no reason was assigned affirmed die de cision of the lower Court pronounced the negroes jfigtot slaves but free and ordered them to be dis charged Discharged they were and by the be nevolence of private charity sympathizing widi their forlorn condition were sent back to their na tive land Bench who concurred in itwithgross official mis conduct stimulated by a vicious enthusiasm forlib erating the slaves Mr Chairman I will riot here discuss the ques tion whether enthusiasm for liberating slaves is an impulse of good or or evn uno quwwu iu wo case of the Amistad negroes was whether they were slavey even by the Jaws and treaties of the country of the vessel in which they were found? By over helming uncontested evidence it was proved be the Courts that they were not slaves but free One fat was to this mass of the date of the capture of the Amistad by LieutA Ged ney That date was the 26th of August 1839 This report merely substitutes for 1839 1840 and the whole volume of evidence that the negroes are free crumbles ruin the District Attorney and Judge and the Judges of the Supreme Court are vilified without reserve the negroes of the 4 Amis tad are slaves i pirates rand murderers and the people of the United States are to be mulcted in the sum of $70000' to repair the losses of the slave traders Ruizand Montes Since the of the Government of the United States no controversy has ever been carried through a more searching and thorough judicial in vestigation before the three organized tribunals of this the District Circuit tuid Supreme Courts of the United than the case of the Amistad captives The case of the 'Antelope some" years before had disclosed the lamentable fact that a radical difference of opinion upon the collisions between tlie law of freedom and the law of slavey 'divided equally the members of the? highest triou nals of the nation After three successive triate before the Supreme Court of that case and some xof the strangest decisions ever pronounced by ju dicial authority Chief Justice' Marshall in deliver ing their final decree anriouncedtthfelfatt of thii equal division' of opinion arid declared thatby their decision no principle was the case of thq'Amistad captives the Chief Justice and a majority of the Judges upon bgpeh of the Supreme Court were citizens of the filavehold" ing States held therefore theelementary op inion s'ontbeUawfulnessof slavery which had? been' held bthe Southerwdivision of the Court irir the ctise of the Amelopev even Hhey decided: that captives of the Amistad were not slaves but free and as such discharged their long imprisonment They decided that neither Ruiz rior Montes had a title of claim to any one of those' unfortunate captives They came to this de cision in fiicefBiffie influence lawfiiflJid unlawful that the Union could ex ofiann nnd control the judgment of the CouH wretched Africans arid' in faVor of their rt 1 oppressors and now this report and this bill call upon this House and Congress to pay 70000 dollars NO 16 inff them the court wwwui iidityonly decidedthat thethirty fiye Bozatebefore the tourtriould be no part of the Ladmoe LETTERS ROM HENRY WRIGHT Tsnsbruck (Tyrol) July 12 1845 12 Vow on the wooden bridge that crosses the river Ian at the north side of the town Nothing can ex ceed the enchantment of the view from this spot Apparently close to me and hanging over my head rise up mountains 7000 the Inn rushing swiftly under my feet the town lying in full view before two miles across the valley atthe south stretches a range of mountains east and west some of the peaks rising 8000 feet The valley of the Inn spreads out east and west covered with harvest fields and thousands are gathering in the crops One reflection detracts greatly from my enjoyment The spot where I now stand forty years ago was running down with streams Of human blood and covered heaps upon heaps with the dead bodies of men slain in the wrath and fury bf battle On and about this place one of the severest battles of the war with Napolepn was foqght in which the peasants of the mountains un der the command of Hafer completely repujsed the disciplined hosts of rance and drove them out of Innsbruck This battle was fought August 13 1809 between 25000 rench under the Duke of Danzig and 18000 Tyrolese peasants under the command of Hafer This battle for a few months decided the fate of the Tyrol The rench were driven out of the country On the 15th of August Hafer amid the shouts of the people delirious with joy at their deliverance made a triumphal entry into Inns bruck Six months lacking five days from thatdate Hafer was shot at Mantua! What a change was there But he died the cherished idol of his country In spirit I am present at the scene which was enacted on the spot where I now stand August 13 1809 I hearing the story from one who was in the bloody contest I seem to see the rushing of brother upon brother in deadly strife each his heart full of wrath and death seeking the blood of the other 1 see the sword thrust through the bodies of men the falling rocks the flowing blood and I hear the roar of cannon and the groans of the dying These were brothers of the same family children of a corn incm father and priests and churches assure me that that battle like the "slaughter on Bunker Hill was a sweet and acceptable offering unto God Here before heaven and on this field of blood I re cord my eternal hostility to a religion which sanctions speh foul unnatural deeds and reject with horror the being that can gloat his eyes over a battle field where human brethren strive in death He is not the God of love and ather of His children revealed in Christianity but a demon of blood I scorn the pre tensions of that man to Christianity who pleads for war or preparations for war They arc men or blood not ministers or followers of the Prince of Peace To a war making and a slaveholding reli gion I am an to a war making and slave holding God I am an Atheist and must be in order io be a Christian God hasten the day when sects 1 and nations shall be dashed in pieces and consumed forever and HUMAN BROTHERHOOD become a watchword of mankind Now looking at the Golden Roof It is a largo por tico or arid window whose roof is covered with copper gilded with thick gold It projects in front of the former residence of the Counts of Tyrol Tradi tion says that one rederick Count of Tyrol was nick named rederick of the empty Purse To show that he was not poor and to refute public re port as to his poverty ho spent 30000 ducats on this roof This actually made him what report had called him Opponents of abolitionists accuse them of slandering slaveholders in denouncing them as inhu man monsters and then assure us that in conse quence of abolitionism they tjeal their slaves with ten fold more severity than ever Now at the Alta Burg (Old Palace) the former residence of severaLof the German Emperors In 152 Charles of Spain was residing here sick atheart and suffering with gout when Maurice of Saxony his great antagonist with a strong force came upon him so suddenly and unexpectedly that Charles barely escaped Maurice had nearly taken him in his bed Charles was compelled to escape on a litter over the mountains in the darkness of night atempest driving into his face and an eager enemy 'pressing behind He had vainly hoped that his Watchful enemy would not pursue him to this retired valley he trusted to the barriers of mountains around to protect him but he found no rest And all those wars were undertaken as we are told for the honor of God Maurice the champion of Protestantism and Charles of Blood and carnage have tracked them both twound the world Both are alike abhorrent to Christianity Shooting Match The Tyrolese are the most famed marksmen with the retie in Europe and great pains is taken to perfect them in the art of shooting with thia weapon Shoot ing matches are held here frequently and in other parts of She country On these occasions the men skelled in thc use of the rifle come together from the surrounding hills and mountains and shoot at a mark for a wager The first families as to station and in telligence go to see the shooting One of these shooting matches is now being held The place or shooting house is a little outside the town in a lovely spot Many here men women and children and all take a deep interest in the game There are often bets to a considerable amount on different marks men It is curious to see the excitement the absorb ing interest of the shooters and spectators for the spectators all have some in whom they are iar ticularly interested They all shoot without a rest for their rifle and they shoot so that it would be dangerous to come within reach of thsir aim in time of'war But what an occupation Men seeking to perfect themselves in the use of the rifle with a view t0 be able to shoot their fellow men It is abhorrent to my feelings To sea men point at a human heart and shoot at it to see what distance they can put a bullet through it! The rifle is said to be the defence the bulwark of the Tyrol and the result is "what might be expected She takes thiXrord and perish es by the she sheds blood and her blood is shed by man Many many times hasthi mountain ous country flowed down with the blood of her in habitants Dinner Abojjl5rty at the table whom Jike my selnave their home in distant lands They have exploring the scenery mountains arofoid and looking into whatever could interest in this to wh Several Englishmen one of whom has engaged fo join us in taking a carriage over the Alps tfregtns qp Lake Constance Each guest is relating his exploits and what ho has seen and heard Borne have climbed the mountains some have tfR i sT if E7W0 rl a a sand dollars ot the money oi your constituents ana mine are to be squandered under the pretence of indemnifying the owners of the Spanish Amistad for the unlawful seizure detention andsalvage allowed of that vessel and her cargo and liberation of the slaves on board of her in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty and after wards during their detention and by their libera Seventy thousand dollars to indemnify the owners of the Ainistad for the liberation of men falsely al leged to Im slaves whom the Supreme Judicial Court of the United States have solemnly pro nouycetkijot to be slaves but free Seventy thousand dollars to indemnify the owners of the Amistad for the liberation of jiersons whom the Spanish Mimster himself demanded should be delivered to him and sent by the President of the United States to Cuba not as slaves but as assassins Seventy thousand dollars to the owners of the Am istad far the liberation of persons who even if they were slaves did not belong and never bad belonged to them The pretended owners of the slaves were Ruiz and Montes neither of whom was owner the Amistad or of any part of herd The owner of the Amistad was errer the cap ivt ft xvne killed The of the blacks who belonged to him was decreed by the Judge of 39 and thence the District vourt i iu uic widow because he said he wished to go to her but he afterwards hanged his mind 1 1 the negroes of the Amistad bad by decree of MTWe: Li eERWTOiL PUBLISHED EVERY RIDAY AT THE SLAVER OICE JIENRY AV1LLL1MS Genera vAgest ffjf All remittances Rte to bo made and all lettersST 'I A relating to tho pecuniary concerns of the paper are to be directed (post paid to the General Agent (UP $2 50 per annum payable in ad vance' or $3 00 at the expiration of six months ffjT ive copies will be sent to one address for ten dollars if payment be forwarded in advance making less than a square inserted three times for 75 cts one square for $1 00 'inancial Committee" rancis Jackson EtIis Gray Loring Edmund Quinct Samuel Philbrick Wendell Phillips This committee is responsible only forthe financial economy of the paper have been shipped off to Cuba: The order for tfiat movement as you have seen was already signed by 1 Mr Van Buren By what process of reasoning could tlie Spanish Minister then at qiice demand 1 that the blacks should be delivered up and sent to 1 Cuba as assassins arid yet paid for by the people of I dris Union as slaves Th6 bill professes to grant seventy thousand dol lars pultfc money jas indemnity to theoicn er of tjie Spanish schooner for the unlaivful seizure and'felvage allowed 'of that vessel and cargo and liberation bf the slaves on board of her 1 in tlie'year 1840 anil afterwards during their deten tion and by their liberation All this the bill qual ifies ds unlawful Was it riot ehough to squander seventy thousand dollars of the public money upon slave traders for losses in their trade without the indecency ofqualifying the solemn decisions of the Dhtri4 Court and of the Supreme Court' of the United States as iinlawful? If file seizure arid de tention of the vessel cargo and blacks was unlaw ful it was so against' the blacks themselves the pos sessors of the vessel and cargo and not against the Spanish owners of the vessel and cargo nor yet against Ruiz and Montes liberated themselves from captivity by the seizure and themselves tliri cause of all the detention by claiming the negroes as their slaves The report pretends that the com mittee concur in all this opinion of unlawfulness with the President The President in his message of 28th ebruary 843 says expressly that die case of the Amistad as was clearly decided by the court was not a case of If by the selection of the words as was decided by the was intended an insinuation that the decision of the court was un lawful the report of the committee understands it by sympathy Of this decency I forbear to speak Seventy thousand dollars is rather a severe: penalty to impose upon the people for this insinuated re versal by the President of the deliberate mid solemn judgment of the Supreme Court The report says that the Committee jeoncur in this opinion of the President and one of the modes by the report arrives at that conclusion is by an ingenious chronqjogical transpositioii'Oftime a mere mistake of one year 'One of the material facts upon which the Su preme Court had decided that the negroes of the? Amistad were free and not slaves was that in the language of the Island of Cuba they were Bozals and not Ladiuos The Bozal is what used to be called a new negro fresh from Africa and ignorant of the language and manners of the country into which he has been transmitted The negroes of the Amistad had been landed at the Havana in tine 183!) from a Portuguese slaver in violation of the laws and treaties of Spain It is perhaps not known to all the members of the House that the treaties of Spain and the laws of the Island of Culm against the slave trade are as bitter and biting in words as our own statutes as the tenth article of the treaty of Ghent the eighth article of the Ashburton treaty or tlic messages of Vice President Tyler But while this has been the state of the national obliga tions of Spain and of the written law of Cuba the unwritten law or custom has been to import every year thousands upon thousands of African negroes with not only the same notoriety but with the same publicity as if no such prohibitory law or treaty ex isted A douceur of ten dollars or a doubloon a head for the negroes to the Governor General was the regular substitute for an entry at the custom 1 house and that doubloon in the official passportsj of tho Governor General transformed a Bozal jnto a Ladino That is it passed off a new negro im ported in defiance of the laws and treaties of the country for an old long settled negro slave and such a passport was given by the Governor Gen eral to Ruiz and Montes for these negroes of the Amistad whom they claimed as their slaves Now Ruiz and Montes these much abused foreigners knew full well that they were not Ladinos but Bozals They had bought them in the market overt within a week or two after their being landed from the slaver in which they had been imported They had given them Spanish names and paid the doubloon a head for the passport falsely calling 1 them Ladinos 1 We are now prepared to ask of the Committee 1 on oreign Affairs some explanation of the follow 1 ing statement on the first page of their report It appears that on the 26th of August 1840 a pub lic vessel of the United States took possession of this Spanish schooner on the coastof Connecticut manned by forty five piratical negroes who had murdered the master of the vessel and the cook severely wounded Mr Montes one of the owners sent the only two seamen onboard of her adrift in the boat and spared the lives of Ruiz and Montes the two owners on board on condition only that they should navigate the ves sel the negroes being altogether ignorant and inca pable of doing There are in thiH statement several palpable er rors each of which is fatal to this bill and which require independent to their vitality to the princi ple of the bill explanation from every individual member of the Committee who assented to the re lort irst The capture of the schooner Amistad by the public vessel of the United States was not bn the 26th of August 1840 nor on the coast of Con necticut It was on the 26th of August 1839 on the coast of Long Island within the territorial ju risdiction of New York Here are tw errors of facts errors of time and of place The latter im material to the principle of this bill but the error of time is fatal to every pretension of claim to in demnity either to the owners of the schooner Amis tad or to the much abused foreigners the slave traders Ruiz and Montes It involves the question whether the negroes were Bozals or Ladinos whether they were piratical murderers or freemen recovering and vindicating from African slave traders their personal freedom bv Justifiable homi cide whether the passport of the Governor Gen eral was an official record of truth or a doubloon fought record of falsehood On the trials before the Courts' of the United States the proofs that the negroes of the Ainistad ere Bozals fresh imported from Africa were so multifarious and irresistible that the District Attor ney whose extreme zeal for the delivery up of these most unfortunate human beings was among the most remarkable features of the whole proceedings was compelled to admit that the negroes with one exception wpre Bozals just imported from Africaj' in defiance of the tew and in defiance of the treaty obligations of Spain The fact was so per fectly notorious that the very name of the Portu guese vessel in which they had been the time of her departure with them from tho' "coast of Africa and that of her arrival at the Havana were equally well known The report sir not only con tests the fact but censures the District Attorney for his admission of it in court and censures with no sparing hand tire Suprine Court of the United States itself for having given credit to it and foundedtheir decision upon Perhaps the most elaborate part of the report is a desperate attempt to invalidate the whole mass of this testimony and here you see the utility of this crrQr of time on the pa geof tlie report There it is stated that the capture of the Amistad by Captain Gedney was on the 26th of August 1810 And nowqsir look at page 10 of the answer these 'alleged1 barbariansadjudgeid by the Court touie Africans! just kidnappedfrom their savage state "as put on the record for them" states 1 thev were from' Africa the 15th of Abril rr tn nna i ne iJiarner Judge dates their arrival in Cuba the 12th' of June 1839 Of course they had ten there fourteen months before they were taken on board the Amistad yet '1 TX LI Uiw WMV Av a ny me repon iromuiu' Affairs urges this to lavish seventy' tfaous 5 and dollars of public mbrieyqnthe rniscreantteteve traders Ruiz and Montes pours a flood' of foul abuse upon Dr Madden and is quitexSCandalized that judges Thomson and Judson should" so far forgotten the comity of imtionel as itOpermit him to bear testimony casting th ej" shadow of at'doubt upon1 the immaculate purity of a certificate signed by the CaptainGeneralofithe Island ofl 'A The "passports of the 'Captain General werot 1 branded as fraudulent upon their face'K Thes form of the passport is prescribed by law It is sepa pate for every individual and is required to'contam a description of ihis or 'her 'personso minute as to prove 'i thefcidentity of theibearer upon? mere inspection The margin specifies in printed' words the stature age hmr tforehead eye brows5 eyes nose mouth beard and peculiar signs? which to render the passport legal evidence must filled up to' correspondwith the of the bearer Inztliis case there iwere' twb passportS signeddiythe Captain General both jin this printed form but itr both of the fescription ofcthe person' was left in blankand one "oft the passports was' for forty nine' Ladinos with Spanish names i uie properly vi jjoimqbb jxuiz vnuuf 3 on tn Port kiTheletlief pasP Was for three black LadihoS with Spanish name the property of Don Pedro Montes permission to go to Port Ihincipe by jf Of the forty nine persons named Ira uiotost port seventeen bad perished by the hardships of tho treatment wliich they had dOfthe survivors' not one could speak orl understand a word of ffiiSpanish anguagf not one knew the name by whichje ascaUedto port or could answer to itThe three black Lad nosof tbe btber passport were feinate iunder twelve years of age equally ignorant of ythe Spanish language and of the Spanish names given them in thekpassport They were all in presence of the Distnct Court beyond all question to be BoZals and Go admitted by the District Attorney to be not six monthsfrorrwthe coast ofAfncalHowwas it possible for the District Court to receivetbe I Captain passports for fifty two LMinos iii a Attorney's confession ofi their (j African recency or make their Spanish masters purchase them toitAuf knowledge of all the circumstances These atrium i pliant arguments of guilt were reserved to be discov eries inventions' 'and mistaln of the Judcre delivering the opinion the Supreme Court! apprthebded that a fact vital the rectitude of the judgment assumed without imyfl proof of it and that judgment is put on an unauthori ted postulate the unAecduntable confes sion? The errors in fact and in law all! the judgments seem to be ascribable'to thatenthusi asm for liberatiuthe Africans which in a good cause would havebcen niore 1 i Mr Chairman at this passagc I must pauso The report here speaks in the name of the Every member of the Committee therefore is re 4 sponsible to this House to the American people 1 and to the worldforihe assertions of fact and the aspersions of chuWcterin this paragraph contained" The District Attorney of the United States Mr Holabird a man for whose personal integrity tmd official competency the present' members of this House from the State of Connecticut may per haps feel some interest is here? charged bydhx Committee with gross official misconduct for ad mitting in court "a fact which 110 hardihood of im pudence would then and there have dared to deny The Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States who concurred in their a majority of them being citizens of slaveholdiug are in this paragraph as well as the Judge of the Dis trict Court of theUnited States Mr Judson severe lyand sneeringly censured for official corruption The decree of the District Judge is charged witha gross inconsistency in thecomputationof time under the sarcastic denomination of this judicial chronolo gy if The Judge of the Supreme Court who deliv ered their sentence is charged with 4 inventions and mistaken reliances of African recen cv in the the Ainistad ands all this is imputed by the Committee to a bad cause a criminals enthusiasm for liberating the Africans And what Mr Chairman is the foundation of all this prodigality of invective upon the District At torney of the United States andsthe Judge qf the District Courtf the United States of Connecticut upon all Hie Judges who concurred in their decree and above all upon the Judge who delivered their Mr Story? It has all no other foundation of fact than the falsification on the first page of the date of the capture by a public vessel of the1 United States of the schooner Amistad It istheie stated that this capture took place on the 26th of August 1840 and in this paragraph upon which I am now animadverting in this volume of slan der upon the District Attorney? and? of the District Court in Connecticut and upon the Judges of the highest Judicial tribunal of this Union MAe" commiuee are maae iu uiui nology ot tnc District Judge me negroes course been tourreen inoiuus in WAV fnlrnyt rtn 1 chronology of the Judge the negroes of the Amistad were landed from Africa at Havana1 on tbe 12th of June 1839 On the 27th of that same month they were? shipped in the? Amistad for Porto i Principe and on tbe 26th of August of that same: year the Amistad and the thirty five surviving no groes of fifty two taken off Montank Pojnt by Lieutenant Gedney commander of the United States armed brig This was the ju dicial chronology of the District Circuit and Su preme Courts of the United States The memliers I of die Committee on oreign Affairs of last' session are called upon Jo say "by what chronology by whose discovery invention or mistaken reliance'? the interval between the 12th and 27th of the same month is expanded of course to a period of fourteen months Sir it is done by the invention of substituting on the first page of the report the 26th of August 1840 for the 29th of August 1836 There is the falsifi cation of the fact: and I now enquire for what pur pose it was made Premising Uiat I am perfectly sure that no member of the committee odier than the author of the report knew or had the suspicion of this falsification I cannot but repeat that the report speaks in the name of the committee and makes every member of die committee who assented to it responsible for die falsification as well as for the purposes to which it was adapted The ultimate purpose was to prevail upon this AtknvHniren nf fn nnsfi the bill now under a bill to bestow seventy thousand dollars of the money of your constituents 3 nwl wino nn h'lll'tOithe the Amistad but in reality to two slave traders of the Island of Cuba aeither of whom owns the valued of a dollar in that To effect this puipose the passage of the report which I have now read? discloses diG means'? The means were to cast con temptuous discredit on die solemn deliberate juag i merits of die District Circuit and Supreme Judi cial Courts of the United States: to charge Mr I Tolabird then District Attorney of the United States intervention of any judicial tribunal without habeas i And now Mr Chairman with this narrative be corpus without jury without protection of lav of fore you what shadow of pretence is there for the any kind Yet this was demanded by two Span bill reported by the committee of oreign Affairs ish ministers in succession and must I say that it The bill purports to be to indemnify the owners was countenanced as far as he dared by the then the Spanish schooner Ainistad and seventy diouf Ik 1 1 I a 14 I) 1 1 1 nt rt vrt rt4 i'auw nAnotif i ar JlvnitlCIH UHJ IHIIU'U OUllVfr iUttt 111! lUHJHUUli and formally and officially recommended by his Attorney General elix Grundy an owner of slaves Yes! at the demand of two Spanish Ministers the authority was then claimed for tho President of the United States of commanding a marshal of a judiciafhstrict holding thirty five persons under the warrant and protection of the judicial courts toship them off without trial judge or jury to be ju dicially murdered in a foreign land When on the 26tb of August 1839 (I pray you not to forget the date) lieutenant Gedney took pos wssiuti of the vessel there were on board of her the two Cuban slave traders Ruizand Montes upon whom the sympathy of as much compassion as the bill lavishes of the inoney of our constituents Tliee much airused foreigners werff then prisoners of the blacks who had possession of the veitsel Liqutebunt Gedney saved their lives so far as they were in danger from the negroes anr set them free 'rhe first return of their gratuude was to turn round and claim all the blacks save one ns their slaves their property aqd yet to deny one cent of salvage to Lieutenant Gedney for re covering and saving it for thorn Thus then stood the caw: before the District and Circuit Courts of the United States in Connecticut' The vessel and cargo were libelled as Spanish pro erty thotihirty five blacks female children includ ed were cnnrgcu witn rnuruer ana piracy on the high seas the Spanish' Minister Argaiz claimed them all not as slaves but as assassins and demand ed that the President of the United States 'should first surrender them up to hiirinnd then ship them to Ha Vnna for trial Ruiz and Montes th? ihoimn ihfantMheoffspring a born and permanenUy dded to the klavd population of Christian licanC Democratic! America every yearly pta Immediate Uncondifional arc tdbe placed oithe sarnelevcl of infamy the same ficndiaJi catagorya kidnappers tand nicn 4 'stealcrs a race of monster unparalleled ip their as sumption of power and theii despotic truclty jL' '(EJ The cxisfingConstitutlonofthef United Statesis aconvenant with deathimd an agreement with hell if a I 1 a a a 3 a board the Amistad vet If the uerroes of tho Amistad hadA by decree of the very next sentence of the District decree the DistrirTCoiirt of the United States liecn placed charges Ruiz nnd Montesswith their purchase" only Irk 1 A I 1 1 SB Aaam A 4Lrtla fifr AXtHYib 'Mi UHLLUUU wa UXLC1 LilGlXSMSl VM ftkStol decree however does not mention either the District! upon th fi of the money levied upon ffie people of the Unitedr States to Ruiz and Montes as 'hush money for tire) of their slave masters by yvhqso clemency ib? own dives wnrespajed And the owners of theAinistad'too are' to be pqid by the people of the United Statcp for the lawful scizureof thefr vessel byLieuteiiant Gedney unlawful seizure by means of which their vessel was decreed to be restored to them as their property and wiihoutwhiclviCwouldhav bn lost sto them forever jThe Courts States did consider thpAmistad wlicnu seized fPIf Lreutenajpl BSstilk the' property of her primitive owners the legalyeprysentatlyes of Cap tain errer! While the caie was in the process ofi adjudication it became necessary for the benefit ofj all concerned that she should be sold and by lhe? decree of the Court she was sold and by the fipal decree of thq United States District Courts the pro if ceedsof the sale were directed to be paidwith Ia deduction of salvage to Lieut Gedney and thof crew of the brig Washington to the primitive Span 3 ish Cuban owners of the vessel The Courtde creed also tliat the boy Antonio who had been the 3 slave of Captain errer (and was the' only Xadmp iil the vessel) should 1 be restored to his widow as Jlntoniohimselfthen professed to cfcire rom' tljese 4 parts of the decroe of the District Court no appeal was taken If there had been it is apparent that they must have been reversed by ffie Supromo Courtnot for the benefit of the primitives qyvuers of the Ainistad or of Antonio but against any claim of 4 theirs to th property of the vessel or ot tha boy The decree of the District 'Judge' confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States' was that thoj African negroes in possession of the schooner Am? istad withiu the territorial jurisdiction of the State of New York were jvhen seized by Lieut Ged ney neither slaves per pirates decision it follows unquestionably that they were the Own era of the vessel in 1 their possession and to toeing she ought to havo been restoreffiTbo CubtmSppl iards by coming within'the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Now Yorkwere entitledtq theirv lilwkkMr Sktorl IvrafTllkirr S'XftinrhAV mipHfc DCeil Ax r' MWV1 VJ uu iivuiuiq tt rescued from the possession ofjhe negroes by habeas corpus and so might tho boy Antonio? He was prize of war to the African negroes who hud takepj tbe vessel hut the soil of New York had made him free He had breathed the atmosphere oiJiDcny and its oxygen had purified his blood Th? decree of the Court" had left itpuhstantiullytn his option to return to his mistress as a slave or to remain in the land of liberty as a freeman He loved mistress much but his sober second thoughts loved freedom more The Spanish Consul at Boston to whose custody he was awarded when he desired to go could not take him in the State of Connecticut ftca vlwttnl wllAYl hfi: nraffllTfiCl tO aicnro i IS I rt WAm (TMOZ'l BV lit! I 1 1 I 1 0 negroes had ot odf71 freedom board the Amis ad By the judicial i din United ransom Another bright'example in this report of the na tional comity to slavery isJ'the censure of the Supreme' Courtfqr behind false' ana fraudulent certifies the5 African negroes of the "were when iir Wutn they were Bozals the certificate bore the signature of the Captain Geqeral of CubaAt the time of the struggle ovep the capsnd the hats in the Senate of Sweden between the Ein press Catharine Louis the well beloved the 7 Count de Vergennes speaking of a noble Swedish Senator said that he was a most excellent man" and a flaming patriot He had but one defect: He preferred imperials to louis So the Captains General of trie Island of Cuba are all honorable men but most of them have one Of discriminating between ten dollan? and a doub loon a liead for every Africiin nbgro openly and no toriously imported into the Island in the teeth 01 the and the most solemn These attested by number Jess witnesses voluminous papers relating to the suppression of the slave trade classed 'ABj and annually laid before the British Pariia inent attested by all the Consuls of the United States who have resided on tl 'ijsland' of Cubar attested specially by Mr Tristwbo glonfieswith his admiration that spirit of ism which openly" and in the fitce of day in defiance of law and of thrice4 pledged national faith that infamous African slave trade which the laws of his own country declared piracy piiniatiu ble With were attested also by Dr Madden our the trial before the Circuit Court of the Unitedf States of the Amistad captives' PA Madden was at the Havana in" 1839 when" they armed from Africa He'named thePortuguese vessel in which they had been" bnportedpthe bafacoons in which they had been kept for a few days until pur chased in open market by Ruiz and Montes and the premium pudiciHce received by thq Captain Gen I i vY Art aI rt jlnfasrai rb4 tnO tVftftaa 1 lor Closing uw eyes uroawp HORSISM TWRILCAT MX I i A 4 I fl A liiii a fl 2 fl fl WM fl rt iliito JlWHi 1 whch are life liberty and the RUtyOrt Jld of iheAinerican'pcople are i MTO inw i i rw In I HlIJ inw Mi JTI MtlJl Ml fill flil taAV Kr'MiVGlMMUBMlV JMertKr AJ sn MM 1 1 MIVMZ' I It TW 'X irrSM JWiLElM I Ui 2 6 i a 7 jrTTrTTwri irw a i i i i a mi i I i i a zi i ii I 7 MbKf iBi wlBB Bk Ml UuWi JHB Bi i TS JMBS3L I II aMMWR MWM I Sr ft MMMMt Wi.