The Liberator

on all the supposed slaves for salvage, and allows them one-third of the vessel, her tackle, apparel, furniture, and the goods on board. But a similar proportion of the value of any one of the slaves is refused; and yet Antonio is given up entire as property, and as nothing but property, to the Spanish government, for the heirs of Captain Ferrer, his late master. If Antonio be property, the salvors had the first claim, and by the law of nations the highest, to receive all or a part of his value; a claim, which must in all cases be allowed and satisfied by our courts, or by any courts in the world, before any other could be admitted; and if that claim (declared by the court to be perfectly good in this case,) was set aside, by what legal legerdemain did the judge arrive at the conclusion, that Antonio could be sent back into slavery as property? Is he prepared to maintain that a man may be property under the term 'effects' in a treaty, for the purpose of being sent to those who have held and will hold him, contrary to the law of nature and nations, and that the same man is not to be considered property under the same term 'effects,' or those of 'goods,' 'chattels,' 'wares or 'merchandize' in the admiralty law, for the purpose of compensating those who did an act 'highly praiseworthy,' as the judge says, and perfectly agreeable to the law of nations? Here is a snarl of contradictions!

Another reason, which weighs much in my mind against this decision in relation to Antonio, is, that it is admitted on all hands, that if no such property as that in men, were recognized in any part of this country, then there could be no pretence for Spain to demand, or for us to surrender this or any other person as such. This was the ground taken by the British Government in the late correspondence with ours, upon the claim to compensation for southern slaves, who were carried into the British West India ports by stress of weather, and were there set free by the courts. As to slaves, so brought in before the abolition of British slavery, compensation was admitted to be due, though they did not consent to give up the men and women; but as to those brought in after that abolition, both restitution and compensation were emphatically refused. In this decision our Government has acquiesced; for we find no recommendation to prosecute the claim by force or by fraud in the President's late message.

Now, therefore, if this whole nation were free, there could be no question that Antonio is, and of right ought to be, as free as any man in it. But, then, half of our states are slave states, and only half free! What then? Is the evil principle to prevail in even scales, and that too, when the man, whose liberty is in question, is under the guardian care and protection of the internal laws of a free state? Is that villanous, and misbegotten fiction to come in and turn the scale against liberty? Shall thirteen slave states prevail, contrary to the law of nature and of nations, against liberty, and thirteen free states with that law on their side, not prevail in favor of liberty? God forbid. At all events, if this must be, let us hear no more from the Cressons and the Breckenridges about the injustice of calling this 'a slave nation.'

If this be the settled principle, we shall be compelled to send back enslaved foreigners, be their color or nation what it may, so long as the remotest and wickedest state in this Union, and perhaps as long as Texas itself shall please to be guilty of slavery!

But perhaps it will be replied to one branch of my argument, that the reason why salvage was not taken out of Antonio, as being among the 'effects in which the salvors had a property for this purpose, if any body had a property in him, was that by the laws of Connecticut, he could not be sold, and selling him was the only method known to the law, of raising salvage money upon him.

The judge says:

Here, then, I find this claim [the claim of the salvors upon the slaves] hedged about by fixed and known laws, over which it would be impossible for me to leap. I have heretofore decided in the outset of this case, that these alleged slaves cannot be sold. There is no law of the United States, nor of the state of Connecticut, by which title to them can be given under any decree of this court.'

The State of Connecticut! Ay, ay! we thank heaven it was the state of Connecticut; for when we find judges talking so loosely and inconsistently, and deciding so capriciously, we shudder at the thought of what might have been the fate of all these injured men and little children, if Ruiz and Montez had been as cunning in choosing one port, as they were in avoiding another! By the judge's own showing, if he had been sitting in a State where slaves were allowed to be sold, (as many such there be, slaves recaptured from pirates by our revenue cutters, and sometimes by accident by a national vessel, having been repeatedly sold, and the money put into the treasury of the State where they were landed, the government of the United States and of that State thus consummating the crime of piracy.') by his own showing, I say, if he had been sitting in judgment in such a state, he would have allowed Antonio to be sold to pay salvage!

It was, therefore, the internal and municipal regulations of the State of Connecticut by which judge Judson found himself 'hedged about,' and prevented from decreeing the sale of a man in that State; and if those laws could avail to prevent a man from being sold as a slave, why, by the same reasoning, should they not have availed to prevent his being carried off as a slave? In a word, why should not the municipal laws of an American State, which had exclusive jurisdiction over slavery within her limits, and which has abolished it, come in to prevent the recognition of a right in a foreign nation to property in a man, within the jurisdiction of such free state, just as much as the abolition act of Great Britain could come in to prevent such recognition in her provinces, after slavery was abolished there?

In both cases, it is a question of the supremacy of the municipal law of the country where the pretended slave is landed; and we say again, why should not that of Connecticut, on a subject over which she has sovereign power, prevail as well as that of Great Britain, which quoad hoc can have no more power?

If the government or tribunal of the United States can come into one state and take off one man as a slave in a case not provided for in the Constitution, they may go into another and take off as many as they please. If they may enter one state, and make freemen slaves, why may they not enter another and make slaves free? It is a pity indeed, if they are mighty only for mischief!

I trust that the committee and counsel, who have charge of this important case, will not permit Antonio to be hurried off to Cuba as a slave by our government, or the Spanish minister, until the laws of the State of Connecticut, which have been so far respected as to prevent a slave auction in her streets, shall have been fully tried on other points of the case. Why should not a habeas corpus be obtained from a State Judge in Antonio's case? Set him free, and then let him go to Cuba, if he will. Some of the States have unwisely excepted persons committed under the authority of the United States, from the habeas corpus jurisdiction of their own judges. Perhaps Connecticut has done so too; if she has, then of course there can be no relief there, but if she has not, as Massachusetts has not, then there must be relief by that process, 'speedily and without delay.' Why should we be squeamish about conflicts of jurisdiction, where universal and eternal principles of right are sought to be overthrown in favor of crime? Why should a free State be so timid in the cause of freedom, when slave States are so bold and reckless in behalf of the bloody system of slavery? Let the Connecticut judges be put to their responsibility, if there is no law of the State to take away their jurisdiction. The very fact of the enactment of such a law in other states, if it mean any thing, proves that without such a law, their jurisdiction in the case would be unquestionable. In fact, we cannot see why these victims of 'piracy' have been kept in durance vile for half a year, surrounded by a power, which could, and must, if applied to, relieve them in a day or two.

As to the 36, who are to be handed over to government, to be conveyed to Africa, I would observe that they are undoubtedly at liberty to remain in this country, if they think proper. It is desirable that they should do so long enough to complete a tolerable education, if all or any of them desire it. The government cannot carry them off, or keep them as prisoners, if they choose to renounce the benefit, which the law intended to confer on them, by providing for carrying them back to Africa. I do not doubt the zeal and ability of the counsel of these men, but with great respect for each of them, I do suppose that they may be unconsciously affected in an atmosphere of prejudice.

JURISCONSULT.