There was a time when our country was open and earnest against the slave-trade. A well-known provision of the Constitution, classed among original compromises, restrained Congress from prohibiting it prior to the year 1808; but, just so soon as it had the power, Congress acted. Its promptitude justified the enthusiasm with which Judge Story in his Commentaries remarks: “It is to the honor of America that she should have set the first example of interdicting and abolishing the slave-trade in modern times.”[291] By Act of Congress, bearing date as early as March 2, 1807, and to take effect January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited, under penalties of imprisonment, fine, and forfeiture. These were increased by Act of Congress of April 20, 1818. But mild and moderate enactments were not enough; and at length, by Act of May 15, 1820, Congress was constrained to declare the slave-trade piracy, and to punish it with death. Since then this offence has stood in the catalogue of capital crimes.
Already this immense subject had occupied the attention of the great European powers. In the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Great Britain and France united against what was denounced as “a species of commerce equally repugnant to the principles of natural justice and the lights of the times.”[292] This was followed by the Treaty of Ghent, at the close of the same year, in which the United States and Great Britain denounced the traffic in slaves as “irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice,” and promised their best endeavors for its suppression.[293] Then came the Treaty of Vienna, where the great powers joined in declaring it “repugnant to the principles of humanity and of universal morality.”[294] These were declarations only. The next attempt was to find a system of action, which should be effective against the Protean monster in the many metamorphoses it was able to assume, and here England nobly took the lead.
Lord Castlereagh instructed the Duke of Wellington, the British ambassador at Paris, to obtain from France the concession of a mutual right of search for the enforcement of the denunciation in which they were agreed; but this was found unwelcome to the French Government, and therefore not pressed at the time. Such was the beginning of the proposition, which, after various fortunes, is at last recognized in the treaty now before us.
Meanwhile negotiations were opened on our side particularly with Great Britain. These seem for a time to have had the sanction not only of the Executive, but of Congress, or at least of the House of Representatives. Messages from the President, calling attention to the slave-trade, were answered by reports from special committees of the House of Representatives. One of these, made February 9, 1821, concluded with a resolution, “That the President of the United States be requested to enter into such arrangements as he may deem suitable and proper with one or more of the maritime powers of Europe for the effectual abolition of the African slave-trade.” The report, while declaring that “to efface this reproachful stain from the character of civilized mankind would be the proudest triumph that could be achieved in the cause of humanity,” proceeds to announce, in words applicable to the present moment, that “this happy result, experience has demonstrated, cannot be realized by any system, except a concession by the maritime powers to each other’s ships of war of a qualified right of search.”[295] Another report, by a select committee of the House, April 12, 1822, adopted the resolution of the previous committee, and also the recommendation of a mutual right of search, adding, that it could not be doubted “that the people of America have the intelligence to distinguish between the right of searching a neutral on the high seas in time of war, claimed by some belligerents, and that mutual, restricted, and peaceful concession by treaty, suggested by your Committee, and which is demanded in the name of suffering humanity.”[296]
Then came the devoted efforts of Charles Fenton Mercer, an admirable representative of Virginia, who exposed this terrible traffic with a pathos not to be forgotten. On his motion, another resolution was adopted, February 28, 1823, by a vote of one hundred and thirty-one yeas to only nine nays, calling upon the President to enter into negotiations “for the effectual abolition of the African slave-trade, and its ultimate denunciation as piracy, under the Law of Nations, by the consent of the civilized world.”[297] The character of this resolution was impaired by the rejection of an amendment, “and that we agree to a qualified right of search,”[298] which was a falling off from the recommendations of the two committees.
The Executive responded to Congress, and, under instructions from John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, a treaty was negotiated with Great Britain, bearing date March 13, 1824, in which it was stipulated that the ships of the two powers might “cruise on the coasts of Africa, of America, and of the West Indies, for the suppression of the slave-trade,” and empowering them under certain restrictions to detain and capture vessels engaged in this traffic.[299] Important in substance, this treaty became important historically. Although the clause quoted appeared in the original draught sent out from Washington, yet the treaty was ratified by the Senate only on the condition that the words “of America” were struck out, thus excluding operations of British cruisers along the whole extent of American coast.[300] This was fatal to the treaty, as the British Government would not accept the condition. The case is memorable, not only as a check to negotiations for the suppression of the slave-trade, but as a conspicuous instance, where the Senate, in dealing with a power like Great Britain, did not shrink from asserting its prerogative under the Constitution, not less decisive than the tribunitial veto.
Thus it stood. Our own Government had proposed a modified search on the coast of America, but this was point-blank refused by the Senate. It appears that the proposition was made contrary to the judgment of Mr. Adams. His sense of wrong from the long-continued search exercised by British cruisers was so keen that he would not willingly furnish any excuse for its revival; and such, it was feared, might be the concession. Afterwards, in the revelations which he sometimes made to the House of Representatives, he declared his repugnance to this negotiation, and the way it was overcome. The same repugnance, doubtless, influenced Senators in the vote on the treaty, increased by a growing sentiment for Slavery, which the debates on the Missouri Compromise had quickened.
Mr. Adams’s statement made in debate at a later day lets us behind the scenes at an important period. After describing the proposition for a mutual right of search, the veteran said:—
“It was utterly against my judgment and wishes; but I was obliged to submit, and I prepared the requisite despatches to Mr. Rush, then our minister at the court of London. When he made his proposal to Mr. Canning, Mr. Canning’s reply was, ‘Draw up your convention, and I will sign it.’ Mr. Rush did so, and Mr. Canning, without the slightest alteration whatever, without varying the dot of an i or the crossing of a t, did affix to it his signature,—thus assenting to our own terms in our own language. The convention came back here for ratification; but in the mean while another spirit came over the feelings of this House, as well as of the Senate. A party had been formed against the Administration of Mr. Monroe; the course of the Administration was no longer favored, and the House came out in opposition to a convention drawn in conformity to its own previous views.… The Senate ratified the treaty, giving the right of search in the fullest manner to Great Britain, with the exception, I think, of one article, which extended the right to the coast of the United States: that was rejected.”[301]
This statement from an eminent quarter shows how at another time the opposition to a mutual right of search became manifest. It is for the Senate to determine if the time has not come for this opposition to cease.