Argument of John Quincy Adams, Before the Supreme Court of the United States: In the Case of the United States, Appellants, Vs. Cinque, and Others, Africans, Captured in the Schooner Amistad, by Lieut. Gedney, Delivered on the 24th of February and 1st of March, 1841 : with a Review of the Case of the Antelope, Reported in the 10th, 11th, and 12th Volumes of Wheaton's Reports

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S.W. Benedict, 1841 - Amistad (Schooner) - 135 pages
 

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Page 18 - ... and they shall be permitted to refresh and provide themselves at reasonable rates with victuals and all things needful for the sustenance of their persons or reparation of their Ships, and...
Page 115 - Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist must search for its legal solution, in those principles of action which are sanctioned by the usages, the national acts, and the general assent, of that portion of the world of which he considers himself as a part, and to whose law the appeal is made.
Page 130 - States be, and he is hereby, authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits 'of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction...
Page 85 - On the 1'Jth of January, Mr. Forsyth in a confidential letter to Mr. Holabird informs him that his missive of the day before had been received. That the order for the delivery of the Negroes to Lieut. Paine of the Grampus was returned, corrected agreeably to the District Attorney's suggestion — by whom corrected no uninitiated man can tell. Of the final warrant of Martin Van Buren, President of the United States, to the Marshal of the District of Connecticut, to ship for transportation beyond the...
Page 9 - ... she and her cargo, and persons on board, with their property, and all the rights belonging to their personal relations, as established by the laws of the State to which they belong, would be placed under the protection which the laws of nations extend to the unfortunate under such circumstances.
Page 98 - Upon a piratical capture, the property of the original owners cannot be forfeited for the misconduct of the captors in violating the municipal laws of the country where the vessel seized by them is carried.
Page 9 - I know of no other law that reaches the case of my clients, but the law of nature and of nature's God on which our fathers placed our own national existence.
Page 115 - That it is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely be denied. That every man has a natural right to the fruits of his own labour, is generally admitted ; and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits, and appropriate them against his will, seems to be the necessary result of this admission.
Page 82 - Whatever doubts may attend the question whether the Spanish claimants are entitled to restitution of all the Africans taken out of their possession with the Antelope, we cannot doubt the propriety of demanding ample proof of the extent of that possession. Every legal principle which requires the plaintiff to prove his claim in any case, applies with full force to this point ; and no countervailing consideration exists. The onus probandi, as to the number of Africans which were on board when the vessel...
Page 122 - January, one thousand eight hundred and eight, in any river, port, bay, or harbor, or on the high seas, within the jurisdictional limits of the United States...

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