4. The majorities by which this bill has been carried (to wit: of one in the Senate and two in the Representatives) show how divided the opinions were there.
5. The whole of both houses admit the constitution will bear the other exposition, whereas the minorities in both deny it will bear that of the bill.
6. The application of any one ratio is intelligible to the people, and will, therefore be approved, whereas the complex operations of this bill will never be comprehended by them, and though they may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.
XXX.—Opinion relative to a case of recapture, by citizens of the United States, of slaves escaped into Florida, and of an American captain enticing French slaves from St. Domingo.
December 3, 1792.
Complaint has been made by the Representatives of Spain that certain individuals of Georgia entered the State of Florida, and without any application to the Government, seized and carried into Georgia, certain persons, whom they claimed to be their slaves. This aggression was thought the more of, as there exists a convention between that government and the United States against receiving fugitive slaves.
The minister of France has complained that the master of an American vessel, while lying within a harbor of St. Domingo, having enticed some negroes on board his vessel, under pretext of employment, bought them off, and sold them in Georgia as slaves.
1. Has the general government cognizance of these offences? 2. If it has, is any law already provided for trying and punishing them?
1. The Constitution says "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts &c., provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." I do not consider this clause as reaching the point. I suppose its meaning to be, that Congress may collect taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare, in those cases wherein the Constitution empowers them to act for the general welfare. To suppose that it was meant to give them a distinct substantive power, to do any act which might tend to the general welfare, is to render all the enumerations useless, and to make their powers unlimited. We must seek the power therefore in some other clause of the Constitution. It says further, that Congress shall have power to "define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations." These offences were not committed on the high seas, and consequently not within that branch of the clause. Are they against the law of nations, taken as it may be in its whole extent, as founded, 1st, in nature; 2d, usage; 3d, convention? So much may be said in the affirmative, that the legislators ought to send the case before the judiciary for discussion; and the rather, when it is considered that unless the offenders can be punished under this clause, there is no other which goes directly to their case, and consequently our peace with foreign nations will be constantly at the discretion of individuals.
2. Have the legislators sent this question before the Courts by any law already provided? The act of 1789, chapter 20, section 9, says the district courts shall have cognizance concurrent with the courts of the several States, or the circuit courts, of all causes, where an alien sues for a tort only, in violation of the law of nations: but what if there be no alien whose interest is such as to support an action for the tort?—which is precisely the case of the aggression on Florida. If the act in describing the jurisdiction of the Courts, had given them cognizance of proceedings by way of indictment or information against offenders under the law of nations, for the public wrong, and on the public behalf, as well as to an individual for the special tort, it would have been the thing desired.