CONGRESS, U. S. 



339 



sustained the opinion which he rendered in 

 that case by quoting from the decrees of Lord 

 Stowell, of the admiralty court of England, 

 who was a greater judge than ever Chief 

 Justice Mansfield was. They both decide this 

 principle broadly and without any sort of res- 

 ervation or condition, that slavery and the 

 slave trade existed by public national law." 



Mr. Collamer : " The gentleman will permit 

 me to say that I take issue with him on that 

 point. It is acknowledged by international 

 law only in such nations as recognize it." 



Mr. Davis: u Xo, sir; my honorable friend 

 is mistaken there, and I will tell him wherein, 

 in my judgment, he is mistaken. The Supreme 

 Court of the United States, in this decision 

 rendered by Chief Justice Marshall, decided 

 that slavery and the slave trade existed by 

 national law, and that this national law may be 

 repealed locally by the proper legislation of 

 every country upon the earth ; and that this 

 national law, recognizing slavery and the slave 

 trade, exists in every country save hi those 

 countries where, by positive enactment, it has 

 been repealed." 



Mr. Collamer : " That, to my mind, amounts 

 to precisely the same proposition that I stated." 



Mr. Davis : " No, sir. I will read from the 

 opinion in the case of the Antelope again, and 

 I will read from several other opinions. I 

 know that gentlemen are becoming impatient 

 for the sacrifice ; but here, sir, I stand up in 

 my place in the Senate Chamber of the United 

 States, and I maintain the rights of a people 

 who have no self-government, and who have 

 no representation in this chamber ; and al- 

 though gentlemen may be restive under the 

 exercise of this right of mine, which I claim, 

 to appear here in defence of the rights of prop- 

 erty of the people of this District, they will 

 have to submit to that restiveness. In the case 

 of the Antelope (10 Wheaton's Reports, 120), 

 the court say : 



The question whether the slave trade is prohibited 

 by the laws of nations has been seriously propounded, 

 and both the affirmative and negative of the proposi- 

 tion have been maintained with equal earnestness. 



That it is contrary to the law of nature, will 

 scarcely be denied. 



" I never denied it myself; but I say that the 

 law created by the usages of mankind over- 

 rules the law of nature in relation to this sub- 

 ject. What is the law of nature ? My honor- 

 able friend from Vermont might have one code 

 of the law of nature, and other gentlemen 

 might have other codes of the law of nature. 

 "When this traffic was indulged in by the civil- 

 ized world, and the States of Massachusetts and 

 Rhode Island were inundating the colonies 

 with slaves torn from Africa, and selling them 

 for a price, what was the law of nature then in 

 Massachusetts that indulged such a traffic; and 

 what was the law of nature then in the civil- 

 ized world ? What is the law of nature now in 

 Turkey and in China? What was the law of 

 nature in Europe two centuries ago ? What is 



the law of nature in Utah ? The law of nature 

 varies with the altered condition of civilization 

 and the condition of the world; and what is 

 the law of nature in one age and in one country 

 and in one generation, is not the law of nature 

 universally. It is because of this want of uni- 

 formity hi the law of nature, and because there 

 is no common tribunal to ascertain and define 

 and establish what the law of nature is, that it 

 has been uniformly decreed to be subservient 

 to the positive laws of any country, and to the 

 laws of nations, as established upon the usages 

 of the civilized world. But I will read : 



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 labor, is generally admitted ; and that 

 no other person cau rightfully deprive him of those 

 fruits, and appropriate them againt his will, seems to 

 be the necessary result of this admission. But from 

 the earliest times war has existed, and war confers 

 rights in which all have acquiesced. Among the 

 most enlightened nations of antiquity, one of these 

 was, that the victor might enslave the vanquished. 



"That was once a principle of the law of 

 nations as recognized by the whole world. I 

 admit that that principle has been exploded, 

 and properly exploded, by the Christian civili- 

 zation of this age. 



This, which was the usage of all, could not be pro- 

 nounced repugnant to the law of nations, which is 

 certainly td be tried by the test of general usage. 

 That which has received the assent of all, must be the 

 law of all. 



Slavery, then, has its origin in force ; but as the 

 world has agreed that it is a legitimate result of force, 

 the state of things which is thus produced by general 

 consent, cannot be pronounced unlawful. 



"What does Chief Justice Marshall here 

 decide ? That although slavery has its origin 

 in force and is against the law of nature, yet 

 as it has been universally recognized by the 

 civilized world, it exists and is acknowledged 

 by the laws of nations. 



Throughout Christendom this harsh rule has been 

 exploded, and war is no longer considered as giving a 

 right to enslave captives. But this triumph of human- 

 ity has not been universal. The parties to the modern 

 law of nations do not propagate their principles by 

 force ; and Africa has not yet adopted them. Through- 

 out the whole extent of that immense continent, solar 

 as we know its history, it is still the law of nations 

 that prisoners are slaves. Can those who have them- 

 selves renounced this law, be permitted to participate 

 in its effects by purchasing the beings who are its 

 victims 'i 



" Here is a principle to which the honorable 

 Senator from Maine referred : 



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 him- 

 self as a part, and to whose law the appeal is made. 

 If we resort to this standard as the test of international 

 law, the question, as has already been observed, is 

 decided in favor of the legality "of the trade. Both 

 Europe and America embarked in it ; and for nearly two 

 centuries it was carried on without opposition and 

 without censure. A jurist could not say that a practice 

 thus supported was illegal, and that those engaged in 

 it might be punished either personally or by depriva- 

 tion of property. 



