John Quincy Adams and the Amistad case, 1841

 “On July 1, 1839, fifty-three Africans, recently kidnapped into slavery in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana slave market, revolted on board the schooner Amistad. They killed the captain and other crew and ordered the two Spaniards who had purchased them to sail them back to Africa. Instead, the ship was seized off Long Island by a US revenue cutter on August 24, 1839. The Amistad was then landed in New London, Connecticut, where the American revenue cutter’s captain filed for salvage rights to the Amistad’s cargo of Africans. The two Spaniards claimed ownership themselves, while Spanish authorities demanded the Africans be extradited to Cuba and tried for murder. 

Connecticut jailed the Africans and charged them with murder. The slave trade had been outlawed in the United States since 1808, but the institution of slavery itself thrived in the South. The Amistad case entered the federal courts and caught the nation’s attention. The murder charges against the Amistad captives were quickly dropped, but they remained in custody as the legal focus turned to the property rights claimed by various parties. President Martin Van Buren issued an order of extradition, per Spain’s wishes, but the New Haven federal court’s decision preempted the return of the captives to Cuba. The court ruled that no one owned the Africans because they had been illegally enslaved and transported to the New World. The Van Buren administration appealed the decision, and the case came before the US Supreme Court in January 1841. 

Abolitionists enlisted former US president John Quincy Adams to represent the Amistad captives’ petition for freedom before the Supreme Court. Adams, then a 73-year-old US congressman from Massachusetts, had in recent years fought tirelessly against Congress’s “gag rule” banning anti-slavery petitions. Here, Adams accepted the job of representing the Amistad captives, hoping he would “do justice to their cause.” Adams spoke before the Court for nine hours and succeeded in moving the majority to decide in favor of freeing the captives once and for all. The Court ordered the thirty surviving captives (the others had died at sea or in jail) returned to their home in Sierra Leone.”[1]

_______________________________

Closing Argument of John Quincy Adams before the Supreme Court, February 23, 1841 

 “I said, when I began this plea, that my final reliance for success in this case was on this Court as a court of JUSTICE; and in the confidence this fact inspired, that, in the administration of justice, in a case of no less importance than the liberty and the life of a large number of persons, this Court would not decide but on a due consideration of all the rights, both natural and social, of every one of these individuals. I have endeavored to show that they are entitled to their liberty from this Court. I have avoided, purposely avoided, and this Court will do justice to the motive for which I have avoided, a recurrence to those first principles of liberty which might well have been invoked in the argument of this cause. I have shown that Ruiz and Montes, the only parties in interest here, for whose sole benefit this suit is carried on by the Government, were acting at the time in a way that is forbidden by the laws of Great Britain, of Spain, and of the United States, and that the mere signature of the Governor General of Cuba ought not to prevail over the ample evidence in the case that these negroes were free and had a right to assert their liberty. I have shown that the papers in question are absolutely null and insufficient as passports for persons, and still more invalid to convey or prove a title to property…my argument in behalf of the captives of the Amistad, is closed. 

May it please your Honors: On the 7th of February, 1804, now more than thirty-seven years past, my name was entered, and yet stands recorded, on both the rolls, as one of the Attorneys and Counsellors of this Court. Five years later, in February and March, 1809, I appeared for the last time before this Court, in defence of the cause of justice, and of important rights, in which many of my fellow-citizens had property to a large amount at stake. Very shortly afterwards, I was called to the discharge of other duties--first in distant lands, and in later years, within our own country, but in different departments of her Government. 

Little did I imagine that I should ever again be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this Court; yet such has been the dictate of my destiny--and I appear again to plead the cause of justice, and now of liberty and life, in behalf of many of my fellow men, before that same Court, which in a former age I had addressed in support of rights of property I stand again, I trust for the last time, before the same Court--"hic caestus, artemque repono." I stand before the same Court, but not before the same judges--nor aided by the same associates--nor resisted by the same opponents. As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and of public trust, now occupied by you, they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listened then to my voice. Marshall--Cushing--Chase--Washington--Johnson--Livingston--Todd--Where are they? …Where is the marshal--where are the criers of the Court? Alas! where is one of the very judges of the Court, arbiters of life and death, before whom I commenced this anxious argument, even now prematurely closed? Where are they all? Gone! Gone! All gone!--Gone from the services which, in their day and generation, they faithfully rendered to their country. From the excellent characters which they sustained in life, so far as I have had the means of knowing, I humbly hope, and fondly trust, that they have gone to receive the rewards of blessedness on high. In taking, then, my final leave of this Bar, and of this Honorable Court, I can only exclaim a fervent petition to Heaven, that every member of it may go to his final account with as little of earthly frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead, and that you may, every one, after the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, be received at the portals of the next with the approving sentence— “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”[2]

___________________________

[1] https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/john-quincy-adams-and-amistad-case-1841

[2] United States vs. The Amistad, 40 US 518 (1841); Adams' complete argument may be found at: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/amistad_002.asp  

[3] See also: Amistad, movie trailer (1997) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJFDOvGMD0U

Graphic of John Quincy Adams (L) and Joseph Cinqué (R), who led the revolt aboard the Amistad, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cinqu%C3%A9 

The Real American Revolution

From John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, February 13, 1818

Mr Niles, 

The American Revolution was not a trifling or common Event. It’s Effects and Consequences have already been Awful over a great Part of the whole Globe. And when and Where are they to cease? 

But what do We mean by the American Revolution? Do We mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People. A Change in their Religious Sentiments of their Duties and Obligations. While the King, and all in Authority under him, were believed to govern, in Justice and Mercy according to the Laws and Constitutions derived to them from the God of Nature, and transmitted to them by their Ancestors— they thought themselves bound to pray for the King and Queen and all the Royal Family, and all the Authority under them, as Ministers ordained of God for their good. But when they Saw those Powers renouncing all the Principles of Authority, and bent up on the destruction of all the Securities of their Lives, Liberties and Properties, they thought it their Duty to pray for the Continental Congress and all the thirteen State Congresses, &c. 

There might be, and there were others, who thought less about Religion and Conscience, but had certain habitual Sentiments of Allegiance And Loyalty derived from their Education; but believing Allegiance and Protection to be reciprocal, when Protection was withdrawn, they thought Allegiance was dissolved. 

Another Alteration was common to all. The People of America had been educated in an habitual Affection for England as their Mother-Country; and while they Thought her a kind and tender Parent, (erroneously enough, however, for She never was Such a Mother,) no Affection could be more Sincere. But when they found her a cruel Beldam willing, like Lady Macbeth, to “dash their Brains out,” it is no Wonder if their filial Affections ceased and were changed into Indignation and horror. 

This radical Change in the Principles, Opinions Sentiments and Affection of the People, was the real American Revolution. 

By what means, this great and important Alteration in the religious, Moral, political and Social Character of the People of thirteen Colonies, all distinct, unconnected and independent of each other, was begun, pursued and accomplished, it is surely interesting to Humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to Posterity. 

To this End it is greatly to be desired that Young Gentlemen of Letters in all the States, especially in the thirteen Original States, would undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and amusing Task, of Searching and collecting all the Records, Pamphlets, Newspapers and even hand Bills, which in any Way contributed to change the Temper and Views of The People and compose them into an independent Nation. 

The Colonies had grown up under Constitutions of Government, So different, there was so great a Variety of Religions, they were composed of So many different Nations, their Customs, Manners and Habits had So little resemblance, and their Intercourse had been so rare and their Knowledge of each other So imperfect, that to unite them in the Same Principles in Theory and the Same System of Action was certainly a very difficult Enterprise. The complete Accomplishment of it, in So Short a time and by Such Simple means, was perhaps a Singular Example in the History of Mankind. Thirteen Clocks were made to Strike together; a perfection of Mechanism which no Artist had ever before effected....

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

“In America we may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty.” 

—St. George Tucker [1]

        “A foundation of our American republic is “the natural law principle that every human possesses certain inalienable rights. Inherent in this is a right to self-defense—that is, to forcibly resist infringements on inalienable rights. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, enshrined in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, is centered not on hunting or sport shooting but on this natural right of self-defense. It gives “teeth” to the promises of liberty, ensuring that attempts to reduce our natural rights to mere dead letters may be met with meaningful resistance.  

        The Framers and ratifiers of the Second Amendment did not operate in a philosophical or historical vacuum. In ratifying the Second Amendment, they built upon a strong foundation of inherited rights they had long possessed as Englishmen. A century before American independence, the Declaration of Rights of 1689 codified the right of English subjects to possess arms for their defense. Nearly contemporaneous to the American Revolution, famed English jurist William Blackstone listed the right of English subjects to possess arms for their defense as one of the principal barriers against violations of life, liberty, and property. This cherished right flowed from “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, where sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.” 

        The right to keep and bear arms for self-preservation may vest in the individual, but it also secures a collective resistance against large-scale threats to liberty. The founding generation well understood that people who lack the means to defend and enforce their rights are not, in any meaningful sense, free. For centuries, ruling monarchs had often disarmed the general population and then employed professional armies or loyal “select” militias to impose their tyrannical rule on a defenseless people. In a very real sense, the war for independence from Great Britain started over King George III’s attempts to do the same. As colonial frustrations over repeated injuries to their rights and liberties reached a breaking point, the royal response grew progressively hostile and heavy-handed. Increasingly larger numbers of royal soldiers were sent to occupy Boston, not to protect the civilians from foreign threats, but to enforce controversial laws at bayonet-point and intimidate the colonists into submission. Ultimately, under orders from the King, General Thomas Gage led hundreds of well-armed professional troops to forcibly seize supplies of arms and gunpowder stored in some of the most disaffected areas of colonial America—the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. The ensuing skirmishes between British regulars and colonial militiamen were a final “spark” that set the Revolution ablaze. Had the colonists allowed themselves to be widely disarmed—or had they not already been one of the most widely armed civilian populations in history—the Revolution would certainly have been doomed. 

        It is little wonder, then, that the Founders immediately sought to safeguard the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” in their new nation. Their foresight to guarantee a well-armed citizenry continues, even today, to ensure the “security of a free state.”[2]

_______________________________

[1] William Blackstone, Commentaries (St. George Tucker Ed., Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. 1996) (1803). 

[2] Source for Text: https://www.heritage.org/the-essential-second-amendment/the-origins-the-second-amendment

Photo credit: Don Troiani https://www.dontroiani.com/

Copyright © Don Troiani All Rights Reserved.

Note: In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia. 

See also: "The Battle of Athens: An Obscure American Revolution" (1946)

https://www.libertarianism.org/articles/battle-athens-obscure-american-revolution

Statue of Freedom (U.S. Capitol)

“Affixed at the top of the United States Capitol, “Statue of Freedom is a classical female figure with long, flowing hair wearing a helmet with a crest composed of an eagle's head and feathers. She wears a classical dress secured with a brooch inscribed “U.S.” Over it is draped a heavy, flowing, toga-like robe fringed with fur and decorative balls. Her right hand rests upon the hilt of a sheathed sword wrapped in a scarf; in her left hand she holds a laurel wreath of victory and the shield of the United States with 13 stripes. 

The helmet is encircled by nine stars. Ten bronze points tipped with platinum are attached to her headdress, shoulders and shield for protection from lightning. She stands on a cast-iron pedestal topped with a globe encircled with the motto E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one). The lower part of the pedestal is decorated with fasces (symbols of the authority of government) and wreaths. The pedestal is 18-1/2 feet high and almost doubles the total height. The crest of Freedom’s headdress rises 288 feet above the East Front Plaza. 

Statue of Freedom does not wear or hold a knitted liberty cap, as would have been expected in nineteenth-century art. The knit cap provided to freed slaves in ancient Rome had been adopted as the symbol of liberty or freedom during the American and French Revolutions and was usually shown as red. The Statue of Freedom's crested helmet and sword, suggesting she is prepared to protect the nation, are more commonly associated with Minerva or Bellona, Roman goddesses of war. The history of the statue's design explains why she wears a helmet rather than a liberty cap. The story of her casting reveals that some of the people who worked to create Freedom were not themselves free. 

Background & Design Process 

A monumental statue for the top of the national Capitol was part of Architect Thomas U. Walter's original design for a new cast-iron dome, which was authorized by Congress in 1855. Walter's first drawing showed a 16-foot statue holding a liberty cap on the long rod with which a slave would be symbolically touched during a ceremony bestowing his freedom in ancient Rome. 

Construction Superintendent Captain Montgomery Meigs, who was overseeing the artistic decoration of the Capitol extensions, had already engaged American sculptor Thomas Crawford to create other sculptures for the building, including the Senate pediment. He also had Crawford make models for the two bronze doors and for the figures of Justice and History over the Senate door. Born in New York City, Crawford had established a studio in Rome. His portrait statues and groups of classical and historical figures had earned him a reputation as both talented and prolific. 

On May 11, 1855, Meigs wrote to the artist at his studio to commission the statue for the dome. Regarding its subject, Meigs wrote, "We have too many Washingtons, we have America in the pediment. Victories and Liberties are rather pagan emblems, but a Liberty I fear is the best we can get." 

Crawford ended up creating a series of three maquettes (preliminary small models) several feet high and sending photographs of them to Meigs for approval. He described his first design with a female figure wearing a wreath of wheat and laurel as "Freedom triumphant—in Peace and War." 

However, when Meigs sent him a copy of the drawing for the dome, Crawford realized that his statue needed to be taller and stand upon a more prominent pedestal. He then sculpted a graceful figure in a classical dress wearing a liberty cap encircled with stars, holding a shield, wreath, and sword, which he said represented Armed Liberty. It was sent to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who was in charge of the overall construction at the Capitol. Davis objected to the liberty cap, the symbol of freed slaves, because "its history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and should not be enslaved." Davis suggested a helmet with a circle of stars. In response, Crawford designed a crested version of a Roman helmet, "the crest of which is composed of an eagle’s head and a bold arrangement of feathers, suggested by the costume of our Indian tribes." This third design was approved by Jefferson Davis in April 1856. 

Crawford executed the full-size clay model in his studio in Rome. It was then cast in plaster in five major sections. He died suddenly in 1857 before the model left his studio, and his widow shipped the model, packed into six crates, in a small sailing vessel in the spring of 1858. During the voyage the ship began to leak and stopped in Gibraltar for repairs. After leaving Gibraltar, the ship began leaking again to the point that it could go no farther than Bermuda, where the crates were left in storage until other transportation could be arranged. Half of the crates arrived in New York in December, but all sections were not in Washington until late March 1859. 

Beginning in 1860, the statue was cast in five main sections by Clark Mills, whose bronze foundry was located on the outskirts of Washington. Work was halted in 1861 because of the Civil War, but by the end of 1862, with the help of the slave Philip Reid, the statue was finished and temporarily displayed on the Capitol Grounds… Late in 1863, construction of the dome was sufficiently advanced for the installation of the statue, which was hoisted in sections and assembled atop the cast-iron pedestal. The final section, the figure's head and shoulders, was raised on December 2, 1863…”[1] 

The Celebration

“A large crowd stood on the U.S. Capitol’s East Plaza, heads tilted back as they looked skyward, 288 feet above them. Even amid the Civil War and frigid temperatures, hopes ran high as the last piece of a massive new bronze statue, Freedom, was deposited on top of the U.S. Capitol’s dome. As the final piece swung into position, the raising of a Union flag signaled — success! 

The crowds cheered, and [thirty-five] cannons [of the twelve forts positioned] around Washington thundered a deafening salute. “Let us indulge the hope,” wrote the National Intelligencer, “that our posterity to the end of time may look upon it with the same admiration.” 

After eight years of construction during an unprecedented national crisis, the Capitol’s dome, a symbol of Union and republican government, was crowned with a monumental statue personifying freedom. Although President Abraham Lincoln did not attend the ceremony (he had a mild case of smallpox) his symbolic presence at the event was undeniable. 

Just weeks previously, Lincoln spoke about a “new birth of freedom” during his famous Gettysburg Address. The statue carried his imprint; the engineer who installed it stamped “A LINCOLN PRESIDENT” on its feathered headdress, where it remains today.”[2] 

_____________________________________ 

[1] Architect of the Capitol, Statue of Freedom https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/statue-freedom 

[2] Blake Lindsey, A Tale of Two Symbols: Lincoln and the U.S. Capitol Dome, https://fords.org/a-tale-of-two-symbols-lincoln-and-the-u-s-capitol-dome/ 

First photo: Andreas Praefcke - Self-photographed, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2268299 

 

Second Photo by Architect of the Capitol