THE L'AMISTAD CASE. 1 327 ticipated" order of the court made it possible. The naval officers who had seized the Amistad were to go with them as witnesses. Profound silence was commanded to be observed on these orders, to the end that no one might find time to interfere with their execution. The district attorney was instructed not to delay it out of regard for a possible appeal.3 2 The district court did not meet the expectations of the administration, and the district attorney appealed to the circuit court. Failing here, also, the administration brought the matter before the supreme court of the United States.4 1"The Spanish minister having applied to this [state] department for the use of a vessel of the United States, in the event of the decision of the circuit court in the case of the Amistad being favorable to his former application, to convey the negroes to Cuba, for the purpose of being delivered over to the authorities of that island, the president has, agreebly to your suggestion, taken in connection with the request of the Spanish minister, ordered a vessel to be in readiness to receive the negroes from the custody of the marshal as soon as their delivery shall have been ordered by the court." Forsyth to the District Attorney, January 6, 1840; Argument of J. Q. Adams, p. 65. 2 "The vessel destined to convey the negroes of the Amistad to Cuba, to be ordered to anchor off the port of New Haven, Connecticut, as early as the 10th of January next, and be in readiness to receive said negroes from the marshal of the U. S. Lieutenants Gedney and Meade to be ordered to hold themselves in readiness to proceed in the same vessel, for the purpose of affording their testimony in any proceedings that may be ordered by the authorities of Cuba in the matter. These orders should be given with special instructions that they are not to be communicated to any one. Memorandum of the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Navy, January 2, 1840. Ibid., p. 76. if the decision of the court be such as is anticipated, the order of the president is to be carried into execution, unless an appeal is actually interposed,” and he is “not to take it for granted that it will be interposed." Ibid., p. 79. 4I inquired of Richard Peters, the reporter [of the supreme court], if there had ever been a case in which the executive of the United States had made them parties to a suit against individuals at the instigation of a foreign minister. He knew but of one case, and that was one affecting the The eyes of the whole country were now directed with intense gaze to that body. Every reader of the newspapers was acquainted with the case of the Amistad negroes, even in the smallest details. The organs of the administration treated the matter as a political party question, in which all the orthodox were bound to blindly follow their leaders through thick and thin, but they met with decided opposition in the party itself.1 The opponents of slavery summoned their entire strength to save the country from the disgrace of a triumph of the administration. Despite the burthen of uninterrupted contests in the house of representatives, under which the old man groaned, Adams was induced to defend the cause of the blacks. Imposing are the timidity and anxiety with which he approached his responsible task,2 and imposing the holy anger with which the much-ignored and much-contemned ex-president accused the then possessor of the presidential chair of having voluntarily prostituted himself as a passionate advocate of a piece of enormous injustice, which would be a spot on the honor of the nation that could not be wiped out. His speech, which lasted eight hours, was not, by any means, a masterpiece of forensic eloquence, but it was more. The patriot tried numberless times in the furnace of party personal privilege of the minister himself." Mem. of J. Q. Adams, X, p. 404. "The pamphlet review of the Amistad case was published with a blown-bladder puff in the 'Globe' of the instant. It is known to have been written by Pickens, the member of the house from South Carolina. In the New York Evening Post,' an administration paper, there was published an answer to it, ably written, by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr. I had spoken to Mr. Seth M. Gates to get up applications to the editors of the 'National Intelligencer' and the 'Globe' to republish the article in the 'Evening Post' in their papers. Mr. Leavitt told me he had requested its publication in both papers, and had been refused. I advised him to get the refusal in writing." Ibid., X, p. 403. 2 "O how shall I do justice to this case and to these men?" Ibid., X, p. 383. THE L'AMISTAD CASE. 329 calumny, and always found genuine, the last great representative of the period of the war of independence, implored the court which, in accordance with the will of the fathers, should be the rampart of justice and therefore of freedom, in the free republic, not to surrender itself to the unholy spirit of the day. And his hope was not deceived. The court pronounced its judgment on the 9th of March, 1841; the negroes of the Amistad were free.1 Five days before, Van Buren's presidency and the supremacy of the democratic party had come to a close. Adams' speech and the judgment in the Amistad case were the parting salutations which accompanied the only too well experienced "log-roller" into private life. All his endeavors to come forth from it again and enter upon the great stage of political life were destined to remain fruitless.2 1 But this was not the last that the people heard of the Amistad negroes. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania (!), the chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, introduced a bill, in 1844, into the house of representatives, according Ruiz and Montez a compensation of $70,000. Giddings placed the unexampled audacity and baseness of this motion in so clear a light, that both bill and report were laid on the table, and no one dared to call them up again. Giddings, Sp., pp. 73–96. 2 I have endeavored in this chapter to relate the documentary history of the slavery question during Van Buren's administration. The reader may compare the judgment on this subject of an influential fellow-actor. Benton writes: "His [Van Buren's] administration was auspicious to the general harmony, and presents a period of remarkable exemption from the sectional bitterness which had so much afflicted the Union for some years before- and so much more sorely since. Faithful to the sentiments expressed in his inaugural address, he held a firm and even course between sections and parties, and passed through his term without offense to the north or the south on the subject of slavery." Thirty Years' View, II, pp. 207, 208. CHAPTER V. VAN BUREN'S PRESIDENCY. III. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1840. The impression made by the slavery question, during the last preceding years, was great enough to permit it to play some part in the presidential election of 1840. But it had no influence on the defeat of Van Buren and of the democratic party. Often as the president had been called in contempt "the northern man with southern principles," the catalogue of sins in the campaign speeches of the leading whigs have nothing to say of his serviceableness to the slavocracy. What the opposition trumpeted abroad was the financial mismanagement. If we were to attach faith to the charges of the most zealous party organs, this mismanagement was certainly unparalleled. They asserted that Van Buren had heaped on the nation a debt of $31,310,014, which now had to be funded. The situation appears in a very different light in the statements of the men who would not, as they should not, have arranged their data to produce an effect for the moment. As "national debt," Webster designated, at the end of 1840, only the $4,500,000 in treasury notes,? 1 1 "This is the national debt — the legacy of Van Burenism. Mr. Ewing calls it so rightly. He recommends that it be funded." "We wish to confine the thoughts of all readers to one great point, this week-the condition of the United States treasury, and the amount of Mr. Van Buren's national debt, his legacy to the people more than thirty-one millions." This and several other almost like-sounding declarations cited by Woodbury in his speech of the 16th of June, 1841. Writings, I, pp. 134, 135. 2 Statesm.'s Man., II, p. 1252. THE NATIONAL DEBT. 331 1 which, according to the message of the 5th of December, were still outstanding. His charges culminated in the reproach, that the administration had expended yearly nearly eight millions over and above its regular receipts. The excess of expenses over and above income was covered by the capital previously accumulated; but now this was consumed.1 Hence, as yet, he knew nothing of a "vast debt" which had to be borne even now, but was only of opinion that evidently the country was on the eve of being burthened with such a debt in case it continued to act as it had hitherto.2 And, in addition, he declared that he wished to confine himself entirely to figures, and not to inquire whether the expenses which had been made were "reasonable or unreasonable, necessary or unnecessary." 993 The defenders of the administration were undoubtedly right in calling this course of procedure improper. But in what did its guilt consist, if the outlay was reasonable or necessary. Yet, on account of these expenses, the administration was placed in the criminal's dock, and the expenses were 1 Even in a speech of the 30th of March, 1840, he had given more minute expression to this: "The six millions reserved under the deposit law, the nine millions afterwards withheld from the states, the five millions received from the bank all these were funds previously acquired, and none of them any part of the regular income of 1837, 1838 or 1839. All the income and revenue of those years have been expended, and these twenty millions more. This general state of the treasury, and the history of revenue and expenditure for the last three years, may well awaken attention. We have no twenty millions more in crib to go to. Our capital is expended. There will be two millions and a half due from the Bank of the United States in September, and there is a small balance still due from the deposit banks, both together not exceeding three millions and a half; and for the rest we are to rely on the usual sources, the custom house and the land offices." Webst.'s Works, IV, p. 543. 2" What state of things is that? Suppose it should go on. Does not every man see that we have a vast debt immediately before us?" 3 Webst.'s Works, V, pp. 42, 43. |