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"It originated at a period long before the United States became independent, and was carried on within our borders in opposition to the most earnest remonstrance and expostulations of some of the colonies in which it was most actively prosecuted. Its character thus fixed by common consent and general practice, could only be changed by the positive assent of each and every nation, expressed either in the form of municipal law, or conventional arrangement. The United States led the way in efforts to suppress it. They claimed no right to dictate to others, but they resolved, without waiting for the cooperation of other powers, to prohibit it to their own citizens, and to visit its perpetration by them with condign punishment."

Our statesmen and patiots have almost in a body declared their opposition to slavery.

Washington, speaking of slavery, says: "I can say, that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by the Legislative authority, and this as far as my suffrage will go shall not be wanting." In another letter he says: "It being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery may be abolished by law."

Thomas Jefferson thus declared his opinion of slavery in his Notes on Virginia: "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitted despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it." "The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a slave have a country, in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people their industry is

also destroyed. For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; and that his justice cannot sleep forever.'

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In 1814, Jefferson, after affirming that his opinions against slavery were confirmed, says: "The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people; and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain."

In the same spirit of opposition to slavery the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg v. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (16 Peters R. 611,) says: "No nation is bound to regard or recognize the state of slavery as to foreign slaves found within its territorial dominions, when opposed to its own policy, in favor of other nations where slavery is recognized. If it does it, it is a matter of comity, and not as a matter of international right." This conforms to the

decision of this court in the case of the Amistad, and to the principle applied by the British ministry to the ship Creole. This is the true rule of international law, and it is sanctioned by right reason and the precepts of the Gospel.

SECTION THIRTY-FIRST. OF FOREIGN DEBTS AND PROPERTY.

Another national duty of hospitality is to secure to foreigners the right of collecting their debts and retaining their property in case of war. Our treaty of peace of 1783, with Great Britain, by its 4th Article, and the tenth Article of that of 1794, secure mutually to creditors a right to collect debts before contracted, and exempt from confiscation debts, bank shares and money in funds. Our treaty with Sweden of April, 1783, by the 22d Article, and our treaty with Prussia of 1785, by Articles 13th and 23d, and other similar treaties of our republic, aim to secure debts and private property.

The 10th Article of our aforesaid Prussian treaty guarantees the safety and transmission of the property of the citizens and subjects of the parties dying in the dominions of the other by testament and otherwise. This provision is included in many of our treaties.

SECTION THIRTY-SECOND. OF RELIGION.

The 11th Article of our Prussian treaty of 1785, guarantees also freedom of worship to foreign resi dents, Prussian and American, and burial in usual burial grounds. Many of our treaties secure these rights. President Adams, in giving through Mr. Secretary Clay instructions to our Ministers to Panama, urges them to procure this principle to be incorporated in the American code of international law.

SECTION THIRTY-THIRD.

OF WRECKS.

Many of our treaties provide for mutual assistance in case of shipwreck, or distress or danger from tempests or pirates, and for the same treatment to be applied to American property or vessels as to those of other nations and same salvage. This is true hospitality, and is the rule of American conduct. It is a rule of public law.

SECTION THIRTY-FOURTH.

OF NEGOTIATION.

Another duty is to deal courteously, justly and fairly. In negotiation candor and plain honest dealing are required. Chicanery and indirect practices are prohibited by reason and conscience. John Jay attributes to the Prime Minister of France, in 1782 and 1783, practices which fall

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