The diplomatic questions involved were of a delicate nature. The Spanish treaty provided that in case the inhabitants of either country, with their shipping, should be forced through pursuit of pirates or enemy or any other urgent necessity, to enter into any roads or ports of the other, they should enjoy all protection and in no ways be hindered from returning; and that all ships and merchandise of what nature soever, which should be rescued out of the hands of any pirates or robbers on the high seas, and brought into a port of either State, should be taken care of and returned entire to the true proprietor, as soon as due and sufficient proof of ownership should be made.
If the ship’s papers of the Amistad were to be accepted as true, the negroes were rightfully put on board of her as slaves, and were being lawfully transported to a Spanish port, when they rose and freed themselves, and therefore were guilty under Spanish law of piracy and murder; they were then also property and merchandise within the description of the treaty.
The friends of the Africans feared that the President and Secretary of State might take matters into their own hands, and by some mere executive order hand them over to Spain as fugitives from justice, to be sent back to Cuba and tried for murder. The Spanish minister had formally demanded their extradition as early as September 6th. In his dispatch of that date, after thanking our government for the seizure of the Amistad and release of Ruiz and Montez, he said:
“The act of humanity thus performed would have been complete, had the vessel at the same time been set at liberty, and the negroes sent to be tried by the proper tribunal, and by the violated laws of the country of which they are subjects.
“If,” he added, “they should be condemned by the incompetent tribunal that has taken upon itself to try them, as pirates and assassins, the infliction of capital punishment in this case would not be attended with the salutary effects had in view by the law when it resorts to this powerful and terrible alternative, namely, to prevent the commission of similar offenses.” The claims presented therefore were that the Amistad and her cargo be forthwith given up to her owners, and “that the negroes be conveyed to Havana, or be placed at the disposal of the proper authorities in that part of Her Majesty’s dominions, in order to their being tried by the Spanish laws which they have violated; and that in the meantime they be kept in safe custody, in order to prevent their escape.”
On Sept. 13th, Messrs. Staples and Sedgwick, the New York counsel of the “Amistad committee” which had charge of the funds contributed to defend the Africans, addressed a letter to the President, protesting against any compliance with the demand of the Spanish minister. Their claim was that, even under Cuban law, the negroes were unlawfully enslaved, and had a right to strike for their freedom.
“It is this question,” they said, “that we pray may not be decided in the recesses of the Cabinet, where those unfriended men can have no counsel, and can produce no proof, but in the halls of Justice, with the safeguards that she throws around the unfriended and the oppressed.”
This letter, together with that of the Spanish minister, was referred to the Attorney General, Felix Grundy of Tennessee. His opinion was that the demands of Spain were just; that the negroes could not be tried here for an offense committed on a Spanish ship in Spanish waters; that the government could not go behind the ship’s papers to ascertain whether they were really slaves or not, but must leave the determination of that question to the Spanish authorities; and, in conclusion, “that a delivery to the Spanish minister is the only safe course for this government to pursue.”
It is the opinion of many of the most eminent authorities in international law, that it rests in the discretion of the executive department of every government to surrender a fugitive from another country, by which his return is sought, upon reasonable proof that he has been guilty of any offence which is commonly regarded as a gross crime by civilized nations. President Lincoln in 1864, surrendered in this way to Spain, a Cuban officer named Arguelles, who had fraudulently sold into slavery some negroes placed in his custody, although still no extradition treaty existed between the two governments; and in 1876, William M. Tweed was in a similar manner surrendered to the United States, by Spain, to be tried for defrauding the city of New York.