papers were not strictly correct, they still relied on them in preference to further extraneous proof. Add to all this, the twelfth article of the treaty with Spain (1 Laws of United States, 270), which makes passports and certificates evidence of property; and the principle may be regarded as established beyond a question that the regular documents are the best and primary evidence in regard to all property on board of vessels. This is indeed especially the case when they are merely coasting vessels, or such as are brought in on account of distress, shipwreck, or other accident. The injustice of requiring further evidence in such cases is too apparent to need any argument on the subject. Nor is it a less settled rule of international law that when a vessel puts in by reason of distress or any similar cause, she is not to be judged by the municipal law. The unjust results to which a different rule would lead are most apparent. Could we tolerate it, that if one of our own coasters was obliged to put into Cuba, and had regular coasting papers, the courts of that country should look beyond them as to proof of property?

If this point be established, is there any difference between property in slaves and other property? They existed as property at the time of the treaty in perhaps every nation of the globe; they still exist as property in Spain and the United States; they can be demanded as property in the States of this Union to which they fly, and where by the laws they would not, if domiciliated, be property. If, then, they are property, the rules laid down in regard to property extend to them. If they are found on board of a vessel, the evidence of property should be that which is recognized as the best in other cases of property-the vessel's papers, accompanied by possession. In 545*] the case of The Louis, *2 Dodson, 238, slaves are treated of, by Sir William Scott, in express terms, as property, and he directed that those taken unlawfully from a foreigner should be restored.

that the slaves were not property in Cuba, at the date of the document signed by the Governor-General, because they had been lately introduced into that island from Africa, and persons so introduced were free. To this it is answered that if it were so, this court will not look beyond the authentic evidence under the official certificate of the Governor-General; that, if it would, there is not such evidence as this court can regard to be sufficient to overthrow the positive statement of that document; and that, if the evidence were even deemed sufficient to show the recent introduction of the negroes, it does not establish that they were free at the date of the certificate.

I. This court will not look behind the certificate of the Governor-General. It does not appear to be alleged that it is fraudulent in itself. It is found by the District Court to have been signed by him, and countersigned by the officer of the customs. *It was issued [*546 by them in the appropriate exercise of their functions. It resembles an American register or coasting license. Now, all the authorities that have been cited show that these documents are received as the highest species of evidence, and that, even if there is error in the proceedings on which they are founded. The correction must be made by the tribunal from which it emanates. Where should we stop if we were to refuse to give faith to the documents of public officers? All national intercourse, all commerce must be at an end. If there is error in issuing these papers the matter must be sent to the tribunals of Spain for correction.

II. But if this court will look behind this paper, is the evidence sufficient to contradict it? The official declaration to be contradicted is certainly of a character not to be lightly set aside in the courts of a foreign country. The question is not as to the impression we may derive from the evidence; but how far is it sufficient to justify us in declaring a fact in direct contradiction to such an official dec laration. It is not evidence that could be reIn the case of The Antelope, 10 Wheaton, ceived according to the established admiralty 119, the decision in the case of The Louis is practice. Seamen (1 Peters, Ad. Dec. 211) recognized, and the same principle was fully on board of a vessel cannot be witnesses for and completely acted upon. It was there con- one another in matters where they have a ceded (10 Wheaton, 124), that possession on common interest. Again, the principal part board of a vessel was evidence of property. In of this evidence is not taken under oath. the case of Johnson v. Tompkins, 1 Baldwin, That of Dr. Madden, which is mainly relied 577, it was held that, even where it was a ques-upon, is chiefly hearsay; and is contradicted, tion of freedom, or slavery, the same rules of in some of its most essential particulars, by evidence prevailed as in other cases relative to that of other witnesses. the right of property. In the case of Choat v. Wright, 2 Devereux, 289, a sale of a slave accompanied by delivery is valid, though there be no bill of sale. And it is well settled that a title to them is vested by the statute of limitations, as in other cases of property. 5 Cranch, 358, 361; 11 Wheaton, 361.

If, then, the same law exists in regard to property in slaves as in other things; and if documentary evidence, from the highest authority of the country where the property belonged, accompanied with possession, is produced, it follows that the title to the ownership of this property is as complete as is required by law.

But it is said that this evidence is insufficlent, because it is in point of fact fraudulent and untrue. The ground of this assertion is,

Would this court be justified, on evidence such as this, in setting aside the admitted certificate of the Governor-General ? Would such evidence in one of our own courts be deemed adequate to set aside a judicial proceeding, or an act of a public functionary done in the due exercise of his office? How, then, can it be adequate to such an end, before the tribunals of a foreign country, when they pass upon the internal municipal acts of another government; and when the endeavor is made to set them aside in a matter relating to their own property and people?

III. But admit this evidence to be competent and sufficient; admit these negroes were brought into Cuba a few weeks before the certificate was given; still, were they not slaves, under the Spanish law? It is not denied that

547] negroes imported from Africa into Cuba might be slaves. If they are not, it is on account of some special law or decree. Has such a law been produced in the present case? The first document produced is the Treaty with England of 23d September, 1817. But that has no such effect. It promises, indeed, that Spain will take into consideration the means of preventing the slave trade, and it points out those means, so far as the trade on the coast of Africa is concerned. But it carefully limits the ascertainment of any infringement to special tribunals; one at Sierra Leone, and the other at Havana. The next is the decree of December, 1817, which authorizes negroes, brought in against the treaty, to "be declared free." The Treaty of 28th June, 1835, which is next adduced, is confined entirely to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, or the voyage from there. Now, it is evident that none of these documents show that these negroes were free in Cuba. They had not been "declared free" by any competent tribunal. Even had they been taken actually on board of a vessel engaged in the slave trade, they must have been adjudicated upon at one of the two special courts, and nowhere else. Can this court, then, undertake to decide this question of property, when it has not even been decided by the Spanish courts, and make such decision in the face of the certificate of the highest funtionary of the island?

the United States. The court directed their delivery, partly to the consul of Spain, and partly to the United States. It is thus settled that the public functionaries are entitled to intervene in such cases, on behalf of the citizens of their countries. In the present one, the Spanish minister did so intervene by applying to the United States to adopt, on his behalf, the necessary proceedings; and, upon his doing so, Ruiz and Montez withdrew their separate claims. The United States, on their part, acted as the treaty required. The executive is their agent in all such transactions, and on him devolved the obligation to see this property restored entire, if due proof concerning it was made. The form of proceeding was already established by precedent and by law. The course adopted was exactly that pursued in the case of M'Fadden v. The Exchange, 7 Cranch, 116, where a vessel was libeled in a port of the United States. Being a public vessel of a foreign sovereign, which the gov ernment was bound to protect, they intervened exactly in the same way. The libel was dis missed, and the vessel restored to the custody of the public officers of France.

It is submitted, then, that if this court does go behind the certificate of the Governor-General, and look into the fact whether or not these persons were slaves on the 18th June, 1839, yet there is no sufficient evidence on which they could adjudge it to be untrue. If this be so, the proof concerning the property is sufficient to bring the case within the intention and provisions of the treaty.

The next question is, did the United States legally intervene to obtain the decree of the court for the restoration of the property, in order that it might be delivered to the Spanish owners, according to the stipulations of the treaty! They did; because the property of foreigners, thus brought under the cognizance of the courts, is, of right, deliverable to the public funtionaries of the government to which such foreigners belong; because those function aries have required the interposition of the United States on their behalf; and because the 548*] United States were authorized on that request to interpose, pursuant to their treaty obligations.

If

It is, therefore, equally clear, that the United States, in this instance, has pursued the course required by the laws of nations; and if the court are satisfied, on the first point, that there is due proof concerning the property, then it ought to be delivered entire, so that it may be restored to the Spanish owners. this be so, the court below has erred, because it has not decreed any part of the prop- [*549 erty to be delivered entire, except the boy Antonio. From the vessel and cargo, it has deducted the salvage, diminishing them by that amount; and the negroes it has entirely refused to direct to be delivered.

Mr. Baldwin, for the defendants in error:

In preparing to address this honorable court on the questions arising upon this record, in behalf of the humble Africans whom I represent-contending, as they are, for freedom and for life, with two powerful governments arrayed against them-it has been to me a source of high gratification, in this unequal contest, that those questions will be heard and decided by a tribunal not only elevated far above the influence of executive power and popular prej. udice, but, from its very constitution, exempt from liability to those imputations to which a court, less happily constituted, or composed only of members from one section of the Union, might, however unjustly, be exposed.

That the property of foreigners, under such This case is not only one of deep interest in circumstances, may be delivered to the public itself, as affecting the destiny of the unfortu functionaries, is so clearly established, by the nate Africans, whom I represent, but it indecisions of this court, that it is unnecessary to volves considerations deeply affecting our na discuss the point. In the case (2 Mason, 411, tional character in the eyes of the whole 412, 463) of La Jeune Eugenie, there was a civilized world, as well as questions of the libel of the vessel, as in this case, and a claim power on the part of the government of the interposed by the French consul, and also by United States, which are regarded with anxiety the owners themselves. The court there di- and alarm by a large portion of our citizens. rected the delivery of the property to the pub- It presents, for the first time, the question lic functionary. In that of The Divina Pas- whether that government, which was estab tora, 4 Wheat. 52, the Spanish consul inter-lished for the promotion of justice, which was posed. In that of The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 68, there were claims interposed, very much as in this case, by the captain as captor, and by the vice-consuls of Spain and Portugal, for citizens of their respective countries; and by

founded on the great principles of the Revolu tion, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, can, consistently with the genius of our institutions, become a party to proceed ings for the enslavement of human beings cast

become free. In the case of Forbes v. [*554 Cochrane, 2 Barn. & Cress. 463, this question is elaborately discussed and settled by the English Court of King's Bench.

dividuals merely. They are demanded as prop erty only, and for private purposes. It is therefore, a proper subject for the action of the State, and not of the national authorities. The surrender of neither is demandable of By the law of the State of New York, a forright, unless stipulated by treaty. See as to eign slave escaping into that State becomes the surrender of fugitive criminals, 2 Brock. free. And the courts of the United States, in Rep. 493; 2 Sumner, 482; 14 Peters, 540; Doc. acting upon the personal rights men found 199, H. R. 26 Cong. p. 53, 70; 10 Amer. State within the jurisdiction of a free State, are Pap. 151, 153, 433; 3 Hall's Law Journ. 135. An bound to administer the laws as they would be overture was once made by the government of administered by the State courts, in all cases the United States to negotiate a treaty within which the laws of the State do not conflict Great Britain for the mutual surrender of fugi- with_the_laws or obligations of the United tive slaves. But it was instantly repelled by States. The United States as a nation have the British government. It may well be doubt-prohibited the slave trade as inhuman and pied whether such a stipulation is within the treaty-making power under the Constitution of the United States. "The power to make treat ies," says Chief Justice Taney (14 Peters, 569), "is given in general terms, quently it was designed to include all those subjects which in the ordinary intercourse of nations had usually been made subjects 553*] of negotiation and treaty; and which are consistent with the nature of our institutions, and the distribution of powers between the general and State governments." See Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Peters, 569. But, how ever this may be, the attempt to introduce it is evidence that, unless provided for by treaty, the obligation to surrender was not deemed to exist.

and conse

We deny that Ruiz and Montez, Spanish subjects, had a right to call on any officer or court of the United States to use the force of the government, or the process of the law for the purpose of again enslaving those who have thus escaped from foreign slavery, and sought an asylum here. We deny that the seizure of these persons by Lieutenant Gedney for such a purpose was a legal or justifiable act.

ratical, and they have no law authorizing the enslaving of its victims. It is a maxim, to use the words of an eminent English judge, in the case of Forbes v. Cochrane, 2 Barn. & Cress. "that which is called comitas inter communitates cannot prevail in any case where it violates the law of our own country, the law of nature, or the law of God." 9 Eng. C. L. R. 149. And that the laws of a nation proprio vigore, have no force beyond its own territories, except so far as it respects its own citizens, who owe it allegiance, is too familiarly settled to need the citation of authorities. See 9 Wheaton 366; Apollon, 2 Mason, 151-158. The rules on this subject adopted in the English Court of Admiralty are the same which prevail in their courts of common law, though they have decided in the case of The Louis, 2 Dodson, 238 as the Supreme Court did in the case of The Antelope, 10 Wheaton, 66, that as the slave trade was not, at that time, prohibited by the law of nations, if a foreign slaver was captured by an English ship, it was a wrongful act, which it would be the duty of the Court of Admiralty to repair by restoring the possession. The principle of amoveas manus, adopted in these cases, has no application to the case of

How would it be independently of the treaty between the United States and Spain-fugitives from slavery. upon the principles of our government, of the common law, or of the law of nations?

If a foreign slave vessel, engaged in a traffic which by our laws is denounced as inhuman and piratical, should be captured by the slaves while on her voyages from Africa to Cuba, and they should succeed in reaching our shores, have the Constitution or laws of the United States imposed upon our judges, our naval officers, or our executive, the duty of seizing the unhappy fugitives and delivering them up to their oppressors? Did the people of the United States, whose government is based on the great principles of the Revolution, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, confer upon the federal, executive, or judicial tribunals, the power of making our nation accessories to such atrocious violations of human right?

Is there any principle of international law or law of comity which requires it? Are our courts bound, and if not, are they at liberty, to give effect here to the slave trade laws of a foreign nation, to laws affecting strangers, never domiciled there, when, to give them such effect would be to violate the natural rights of men? These questions are answered in the negative by all the most approved writers on the laws of nations. 1 Burg. Confl. 741; Story Confl.

92.

By the law of France, the slaves of their colonies, immediately on their arrival in France,

But it is claimed that if these Africans, though "recently imported into Cuba," were by the laws of Spain the property of Ruiz and Montez, the government of the United States is bound by the treaty to restore them; and that, therefore, the intervention of the executive in these proceedings is proper for that purpose. It has already, it is believed, been shown that even if the case were within the treaty, the intervention of the executive as a party before the judicial tribunals was unnecessary and improper, since the treaty provides [*555 for its own execution by the courts, on the application of the parties in interest. And such a resort is expressly provided in the twentieth article of the Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain, and in the twenty-sixth article of the Treaty of 1801 with the French Republic, both of which are in other respects similar to the ninth article of the Spanish Treaty, on which the Attorney-General has principally relied.

The sixth article of the Spanish Treaty has received a judicial construction in the case of The Santissima Trinidad, 7 Wheaton, 284, where it was decided that the obligation assumed is simply that of protecting belligerent vessels from capture within our jurisdiction. It can have no application therefore to a case like the present.

The ninth article of that treaty provides "that all ships and merchandise of what nat

are soever, which shall be rescued out of the | Judge Barbour, in giving the opinion of the hands of pirates or robbers, on the high seas, court, expressly declares, in reference to the shall be brought into some port of either State, power "to regulate commerce" conferred on and shall be delivered to the custody of the Congress by the Constitution, that "persons officers of that port, in order to be taken care are not the subjects of commerce." Judging of, and restored entire to the true proprietors, from the public sentiment which prevailed at as soon as due and sufficient proof shall be the time of the adoption of the Constitution, it made concerning the property thereof." is probable that the first act of the government in the exercise of its power to regulate com merce, would have been to prohibit the slave trade, if it had not been restrained until 1808, from prohibiting the importation of such persons as any of the States, then exist- [*557 ing, should think proper to admit. But could Congress have passed an act authorizing the importation of slaves as articles of commerce, into any State in opposition to a law of the State prohibiting their introduction? If they could, they may now force slavery into every State. For no State can prohibit the introduetion of legitimate objects of foreign commerce when authorized by Congress.