Simeon E. Baldwin

“ The discussions that shook the councils of the nation in 1859 and 1860, were not as to whether slave-traders should be paid for the escape of their living cargoes, but first whether the whole system of society out of which the slave-trade sprang was not a false one, and then whether those who so believed, if a majority of the American people, should be suffered to exercise the powers of government at Washington. ”

“ But what will be said of American justice when large bodies of men combine, and not only with impunity but applause and transcendent success, prostrate treaties, annul acts of Congress, intimidate courts of justice, seize and imprison parties litigant before them, steal their adjudged property, and by fictitious contrivances of proof, overthrow all law to set free murderers, robbers and pirates? ”

“ Copies of these resolutions were communicated to the Spanish government, among others, and on May 17, 1884, a response was sent from the Colonial office at Madrid, approving their declarations, and stating that they “are in no way an innovation in Spain, whose ancient laws have always recognized as free the slave who enters the territory (including her own) of a nation where slavery does not exist, or who seeks refuge on board a ship belonging to such a nation.” ”

“ A year later, he published in an address to his constituents, the speech which he had intended to deliver in the House,—a biting attack upon the committee, whom he charged with throwing before the public a “putrid mass of slander,” and a report “thick-sown” with “false and spurious principles of international law.” ”

“ Webster not on this occasion to truckle to Spain.” [1]
The matter was laid before President Tyler, and in the following September a reply was made, taking the ground that the decision of the Supreme Court was conclusive on the Executive, and declining to accede to any of the demands of the Spanish minister. The later rejoined that he had “received express orders from his government to protest in the most solemn and formal manner against all that has been done by the courts of the United States in the case of the schooner Amistad.” Mr. ”

“ If this position was questionable then, it was assured twenty years later, and it is pleasant to see that another twenty years has brought Spain herself into the same rank, and hears her ministry disown the claim on which their predecessors so stoutly founded their demand for the restoration of the captives of the Amistad.
Footnotes ↑ Memoirs x. 470↑ Webster’s Diplomatic and Official Papers, 355.↑ By his messages of Feb. 27, 1842, and January 24, 1844.↑ Reports of the Committees, 1st Sess., 28th Congress, vol. ii., No. 426.↑ Cong. Globe, 1st Sess., 28th Congr., appendix, p. 500.↑ Mem. xii. ”