by David Pesci
On the way back to Boston from New Haven, Adams wrote a note to Baldwin thanking him for such a warm welcome to the defense team. “I only hope that my involvement will not in any way damage the chances of our African friends or cause detriment to a positive outcome for this case.” Though Baldwin and Sedgwick read the passage as an example of the courteous modesty embraced as a custom of the times, the hesitancy and nervousness expressed by Adams was completely sincere.
Four days after Adams agreed to defend the Amistads in the Supreme Court, Martin Van Buren lost the presidential election to William Henry Harrison, a Whig. The electoral victory had been huge, 234 to 60, but the popular vote was much closer. In fact, after the final tally was in, Forsyth noted that a shift of only 8,500 votes would have put the necessary electoral votes in Van Buren’s camp to win a second term. Though the Amistad case and Van Buren’s apparent pro-slavery sympathies may have produced a minor decline in his popularity, his loss was attributed to the economy and a lack of public confidence in his leadership.
Van Buren was crushed by the results. Publicly he appeared magnanimous and promised a smooth transition of government. Behind the White House doors, however, he brooded for several days, taking no visitors or nourishment save for a few cups of blackberry tea. When he finally emerged from his quarters and held a meeting of his cabinet, he declared that the execution of Democratic policies that had been taken up or initiated by his administration would continue until the last day of his term. He also gave orders for zealous pursuit of the Amistad case. In late December, word was received from Harrison’s camp that they, too, were anxious to see the district court’s decision on the Amistad case overturned. Van Buren’s attorney general, Henry Gilpin, was given permission to continue on behalf of the new administration if the case went beyond Harrison’s March inauguration.
Though the addition of Adams swelled the members of the Amistad Committee with confidence, opinion across the country seemed to be running against them. In part, this appraisal hinged on the perception that, no matter what the facts, it would be very difficult for blacks of any nationality to defeat whites in a court of law. General consensus also had it that the court would not want to go against the will of the executive on such an explosive issue. Finally, there was the composition of the court itself. Chief Justice Roger Tanny, a former slave owner from Maryland, was an acknowledged supporter of states’ rights. Four of the other eight justices were either Southerners or known as pro-slavery sympathizers: Philip Barbour from Virginia, John Catron from Tennessee, John McKinley from Alabama, and James M. Wayne from Georgia. Barbour, McKinley, and Wayne were also slave owners. In fact, the only justices on the court who were strong anti-slavery advocates were Smith Thompson of New York, who had presided over the original circuit court trial and the district court appeal, and Joseph Story of Massachusetts. The deck, it seemed, was stacked decidedly against the Amistads.
A few weeks before the Supreme Court hearing, Adams, on his way from Boston to Washington, stopped in New Haven for a scheduled meeting with Baldwin and Sedgwick. Adams had still not been able to spend much time with the case and had yet to even begin formal notes or a brief in preparation for his argument. He listened as Baldwin and Sedgwick outlined their strategy and offered some advice on specific points. Adams said nothing about how he would present the case to the high court and was thankful that the two lawyers held enough respect for him not to inquire. After the meeting, however, he did have a request.
“Might we go out to Westville to visit the Africans? I had only met with them that once, and then it was a decidedly brief encounter.”
Baldwin and Sedgwick gladly consented. Despite the chill January weather, Adams suggested they walk the two and a half miles but then recanted, remembering his tight schedule would not permit such a luxury. So instead they made the short ride in his carriage.
Adams spent more than an hour with the tribesmen. He talked to all of them and was impressed by how much their command of the English language had grown in just two months. Before he left, Adams spent a few minutes with Singbe talking about the conditions.
“Well,” Adams said, “I am glad that you are all well fed and that the rooms are kept warm in the winter. And I must say, you all appear rather happy.”
“We smile all the time when whitemen come,” Singbe said. “Until whitemen leave.”
Adams raised an eyebrow. “Why? Why do you smile until the whitemen leave?”
“Colonel Pendelton tell us whitemen fear African blackman. They want to hurt us because of fear. So we smile and make whitemen feel better. So they no afraid.”
Adams nodded.
“Mr. Adams, Mr. Tappan say you can help us. Please help us, Mr. Adams. We need get back home.”
Adams stood and shook Singbe’s hand. “I shall do my very best, my friend.”
On February 22, 1841, the case of The United States vs. Cinque and Others opened in the Supreme Court of the United States. The small, semicircular courtroom located under the Senate floor was filled to capacity. There were only three windows in the room, which were located behind the judicial bench. The morning light streamed through the long, thick-paned frames, rendering the judges into eight foggy silhouettes to anyone who faced them – eight silhouettes because the ninth, McKinley, was in ill health and had been ordered by his physician to remain in bed. The abolitionists considered the pro-slavery judge’s absence not luck, but a direct intervention by God to improve the odds in the case.
Tappan and Jocelyn sat nervously in the front row of the court. The tribesmen had been left behind in Westville. Sedgwick, Baldwin, and Adams entered and took seats at the long, dark table to the justices’ right. Henry Gilpin and Holabird sat across the aisle from them. Neither of the government’s attorneys made eye contact with any of the lawyers from the Amistads’ team.
The judges entered and the opening formalities were performed. After calling the court to order and going through the business of the day, Chief Justice Tanny commanded Gilpin to begin.
Henry Gilpin stood. He was a thin man with a close-cropped tuft of tired brown hair covering the top of his head. His face was so bony and gaunt that at times his sallow skin appeared transparent, but his pale blue eyes were sharp and belied a canny stealth and intelligence. He was a Philadelphia lawyer and had been the city’s chief prosecutor, handling more than a few cases where Sedgwick was the adversary. Appointed Attorney General midway through Van Buren’s term, Gilpin was well-known to the justices of the court and respected as a highly capable attorney.
Gilpin began his presentation by setting forth the same basic arguments framed in the opinion written by Grundy in 1839. As the government’s case unfolded, it was clear that the meat of Gilpin’s argument would be a reiteration of the familiar points made in the previous court cases: The government was bound by both Pickney’s Treaty and the Treaty of 1819. The President believed it was his duty to place the blacks, the ship, and the cargo in the hands of the Spanish authorities, who would then assess whether criminal charges for murder and piracy were warranted. The question of whether the blacks were legally slaves was also a matter for the Spanish courts. Gedney and Meade had acted valiantly, saving the ship and all aboard from certain peril, if not a complete demise. The officers and their crew deserved salvage on ship and cargo; however, the U.S. government would leave it in the court’s hands whether the staves should be included in that formula. Gilpin further declared that the executive was within its rights in attempting to secure a court order permitting the return of property to the documented owners of the ship’s cargo.
Gilpin went on to question much of the “supposed evidence” brought forth by the defense that cast aspersions on whether the blacks were slaves or not and hence acting as men attempting to wrest themselves from unlawful imprisonment. Gilpin insisted that the district court was unduly influenced by the emotional testimony provided by Dr. Madden.
“This testimony was complete hearsay,” Gilpin asserted, “and, even though
Dr. Madden never fully admitted it under oath, his impressions were highly prejudiced in favor of the blacks and against the Spanish slave owners.”
As he spoke, Gilpin paced the courtroom, often disappearing behind the huge Roman pillars that ran from floor to ceiling. At no time during his presentation did he acknowledge any of the testimony made by Singbe or any of the other tribesmen. After almost four hours, Gilpin sat down.
The Court adjourned an hour and a half for lunch and then Baldwin began. Though he spoke for two hours that afternoon and six more the next day, his presentation was little more than a careful listing of the facts surrounding the case. As he listened to his colleague, Adams wondered if such a low intensity display was typical of the Connecticut lawyer or if the man was simply clearing the way for the defense’s senior counsel. Regardless, Adams congratulated Baldwin at the end of his presentation for a making such a “clear and eloquent argument.”
With Baldwin finished, Chief Justice Tanny adjourned the court until the next day when Adams would offer his defense. Before Adams left the courtroom, Tappan handed him an envelope.
“I brought this for you from a friend in Connecticut.” Tappan smiled. “Best of luck tomorrow.”
Adams thanked Tappan and put the note in his valise. He left the courtroom and walked over to his office at the House to look over his notes and to see what had transpired in Congress that day. At quarter to midnight, he began his mile walk back to his house on F Street.
After getting home, Adams continued to work in his study, preparing his notes for the next day’s presentation. Some time after 3:00 A.M. he was too bleary-eyed and exhausted to continue any longer. He pushed away from his desk, took an oil lamp, and walked upstairs to bed. As he entered the room, the lamp’s dull light caught a small white square beside the bed. It was the envelope Tappan had given him. Adams had placed it on his nightstand so he wouldn’t forget to read it.
Dear Mr. Adams,
People say we bad. We kill cook and captain and sailor. But if white man come to Africa and he taken slave, then what he do? He not try to get free too? Please make court understand we free men who want be free again. We want go home. We pray you to win our case. You our friend. We trust you.
Joseph Cinque
Adams had seen and done much in his life, so much that very little surprised him anymore. But the lump that had formed in his throat while he was reading the letter caught him completely off guard. He let out a long, slow breath and then carefully folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. He extinguished the lamp’s flame and waited for sleep to come. Instead, his impatient body tossed fitfully through the night until a sliver of dawn’s light pried through the space between drawn curtains.
Court was back in session at 10:30, Tuesday, February 24. Adams stood slowly, greeted the justices and said it was truly an honor to be able to stand before the distinguished court after an absence of more than thirty years. He also hoped aloud that his absence from legal work of any sort over the same long period of time, and his advanced age, would not detract from his performance in court today.
Adams smiled to the gallery, put on his round wire-framed spectacles, and walked toward the bench to begin his presentation.
“I derive, in the distress I feel for both my clients and myself in this case, consolation from two sources. First, the lives, rights, and liberties of my clients have up to this point been so ably and completely defended by my colleague, Mr. Baldwin. Second, I derive consolation from the thought that this court is a court of justice. And in a court of justice, each party has a right to expect and secure justice from the court. We seek nothing more than that, Your Honors. However, as I stand before the court, I do so also with great sadness and outrage, for I am obliged to take this ground because another department of the government of the United States has used its power to pursue a course of utter injustice. I charge that the present executive administration, which was bound not less than this honorable court to uphold the principles of justice, the rights granted by our Constitution, and the laws of our great land, instead from the outset acted with pronounced sympathy toward one party and antipathy toward my clients – antipathy, I might add, that was solely inspired by nothing more than the color of their skin.”
With that opening, Adams went on to provide a precise and detailed account of how from Gedney’s initial boarding of the Amistad, to Holabird’s actions in the hearing, to Forsyth’s instructions to the prosecutor and communications with the Spanish minister to orders issued by President Van Buren himself, representatives of the U.S. Government acted at every step to deny the Amistads their right to due process.
“Rights, Your Honors, which I’m sure we would all agree would certainly and immediately be afforded to them had their skin been of the same complexion as our own.”
Adams’s presentation was staggering in its precision and organization. He produced quotes from correspondences between Forsyth and Calderón and Argaiz. He noted that early on, Calderón had referred to securing return of “ship, merchandise, and negroes,” which showed a differentiation between men and cargo, and yet in later letters, he demanded return of the blacks under Pickney’s Treaty because they were “part of the ship’s manifested cargo.” Argaiz made similar distinctions in his communications as well. Adams presented as evidence the letter Forsyth had sent Holabird, insisting that a hearing be avoided and the negroes be turned over immediately to the President for delivery to the Spanish consul. The letter, a formal document, had been added to the case files during Holabird’s last appeal.
Adams then moved to Gedney, castigating the officer for his actions in boarding and seizing the Amistad.
“The Africans were in possession of the ship and had the presumptive right of ownership. They were acting peacefully and, the courts have decided, were not in any way engaging in piracy. And yet, lieutenant Gedney, without any charge or warrant or authority from his government, by force of firearms seized the vessel, boarded it, and, upon seeing the color of my clients’ skin, imprisoned them. At the same time, upon seeing the color of the skin of Señors Ruiz and Montes, Gedney took them in, afforded them every comfort, and, without question, immediately assumed the legitimacy of their claims.”
Adams went on to outline and examine the events of the circuit court proceedings and the first portion of the district court hearings, including the testimony of Dr. Madden, whose credentials, Adams reminded the justices, had been reviewed and accepted by Judge Judson.
At 3:30, with the winter daylight beginning to wane, Justice Tanny asked Adams to break off his argument and resume it the next day. Adams agreed and court was adjourned. The next morning, however, Judge Tanny entered the courtroom alone and made a stunning announcement.
“The proceedings of this court have been interrupted by the solemn voice of death. One of the learned and honorable justices who sat here yesterday, Judge Barbour of Virginia, has died last night. This court will be in recess until Monday, March second.”
Barbour, who had not been ill, died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. He was discovered by one of his slaves who entered the bedroom at dawn as usual to wake the judge. Tappan commented to a friend that the incident, complete with its inherent ironies, made it probable that it was nothing less than divine intervention by the Almighty on behalf of the cause.
On the morning of March 2, court was brought back in session and Adams renewed his attack. Along with continuing to point out that Forsyth’s repeated promises and assurances given to Calderón and Argaiz showed a contemptible disregard of the Constitution, Adams added a new element: the direct participation in these activities by Van Buren himself.
“The court will notice that the orders provided to Lieutenant Paine, orders signed by President Van Buren himself, authorize Mr. Paine to take into custody the blacks. Also notice the form and phraseology employed in these orders not only permits Paine to do so despite the fact that a trial regarding the disposition of the blacks was pending, but also that
there was no stipulation that this action of apprehension had to wait until after a decision had been rendered by the district court. We can only wonder at what the President’s intent truly was. Did he intend to deprive the blacks of all their rights and have the U.S. military kidnap them and force them back to Cuba, or did he wish to first let the court make its decision, then deny the blacks their right of appeal, and then kidnap them? Or is it even remotely possible that the President of the United States was completely ignorant of the rights of personal liberty and the laws of our nation as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution? Whatever the case, the issuance of these orders is a contemptuous, vile, and unnerving example of the executive acting in a dictatorial fashion, and, in its appearance, clearly grounds for an extensive inquiry by the legislative branch.”
Adams also provided an extensive examination of the Treaty of 1819, a document that Adams had negotiated and co-written.
“The Government is trying to stretch both the language and the intent of this treaty. However, as one of the treaty’s writers, I can assure the court on my word that at no time did any of the parties involved intend to equate people with merchandise, be they slaves or otherwise.”
Finally, Adams gave a detailed analysis of the Antelope case, which had been pointed to by Gilpin as justification of the Government’s attempts to send the blacks back to Cuba. It was preposterous to attempt to use the Antelope case as any sort of foundation for the case of the Amistad. As it had been pointed out and verified, the blacks of the Amistad were free when they were found, not slaves bound in chains and marked for sale on the American market as were the unfortunate black men of the Antelope. Nor had the Washington any warrants or orders authorizing a seizure. The two cases were covering indisputably different legal territory.