BRITISH INDEMNITY FOR DEPORTED SLAVES.
In this year was brought to a conclusion the long-continued
controversy with Great Britain in relation to the non-fulfilment of
the first article of the treaty of Ghent (1814), for the restitution
of slaves carried off by the British troops in the war of 1812. It
was a renewal of the misunderstanding, but with a better issue,
which grew up under the seventh article of the treaty of peace of
1783 upon the same subject. The power of Washington's administration
was not able to procure the execution of that article, either by
restoration of the slaves or indemnity. The slaves then taken away
were carried to Nova Scotia, where, becoming an annoyance, they
were transferred to Sierra Leone; and thus became the foundation
of the British African colony there. The restitution of deported
slaves, stipulated in the first article of the Ghent treaty, could
not be accomplished between the two powers; they disagreed as to
the meaning of words; and, after seven years of vain efforts to
come to an understanding, it was agreed to refer the question
to arbitrament. The Emperor Alexander accepted the office of
arbitrator, executed it, and decided in favor of the United States.
That decision was as unintelligible to Great Britain as all the
previous treaty stipulations on this same subject had been. She
could not understand it. A second misunderstanding grew up, giving
rise to a second negotiation, which was concluded by a final
agreement to pay the value of the slaves carried off. In 1827
payment was made--twelve years after the injury and the stipulation
to repair it, and after continued and most strenuous exertions to
obtain redress.
The case was this: it was a part of the system of warfare adopted
by the British, when operating in the slave States, to encourage
the slaves to desert from their owners, promising them freedom;
and at the end of the war these slaves were carried off. This
carrying off was foreseen by the United States Commissioners at
Ghent, and in the first article of the treaty was provided against
in these words; "all places taken, &c. shall be restored without
delay, &c., or carrying away any of the artillery, or other public
property originally captured in the said posts or places, and
which shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications
of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property." The
British Government undertook to extend the limitation which applied
to public property to that which was private also; and so to
restore only such slaves as were originally captured within the
forts, and which remained therein at the time of the exchange of
ratifications--a construction which would have excluded all that
were induced to run away, being nearly the whole; and all that left
the forts before the exchange of ratifications, which would have
included the rest. She adhered to the construction given to the
parallel article in the treaty of 1783, and by which all slaves
taken during the war were held to be lawful prize of war, and free
under the British proclamation, and not to be compensated for. The
United States, on the contrary, confined this local limitation to
things appurtenant to the forts; and held the slaves to be private
property, subject to restitution, or claim for compensation, if
carried away at all, no matter how acquired.
The point was solemnly carried before the Emperor Alexander, the
United States represented by their minister, Mr. Henry Middleton,
and Great Britain by Sir Charles Bagot--the Counts Nesselrode
and Capo D'Istrias receiving the arguments to be laid before the
Emperor. His Majesty's decision was peremptory; "that the United
States of America are entitled to a just indemnification from
Great Britain for all private property carried away by the British
forces; and, as the question regards slaves more especially, for
all such slaves as were carried away by the British forces from the
places and territories of which the restitution was stipulated by
the treaty, in quitting the said places and territories." This was
explicit; but the British minister undertook to understand it as
not applying to slaves who _voluntarily_ joined the British troops
to free themselves from bondage, and who came from places never
in _possession_ of the British troops; and he submitted a note to
that effect to the Russian minister, Count Nesselrode, to be laid
before the Emperor. To this note Alexander gave an answer which is
a model of categorical reply to unfounded dubitation. He said: "the
Emperor having, by the mutual consent of the two plenipotentiaries,
given an opinion, founded solely upon the sense which results from
the text of the article in dispute, does not think himself called
upon to decide here any question relative to what the laws of war
permit or forbid to the belligerents; but, always faithful to the
grammatical interpretation of the first article of the treaty of
Ghent, his Imperial Majesty declares, a second time, that it appears
to him, according to this interpretation, that, in quitting the
places and territories of which the treaty of Ghent stipulates the
restitution to the United States, his Britannic Majesty's forces
had no right to carry away from the same places and territories,
absolutely, any slave, by whatever means he had fallen or come into
their power." This was the second declaration, the second decision
of the point; and both parties having bound themselves to abide
the decision, be it what it might, a convention was immediately
concluded for the purpose of carrying the Emperor's decision into
effect, by establishing a board to ascertain the number and value
of the deported slaves. It was a convention formally drawn up,
signed by the ministers of the three powers, done in triplicate,
ratified, and ratifications exchanged, and the affair considered
finished. Not so the fact! New misunderstanding, new negotiation,
five years more consumed in diplomatic notes, and finally a new
convention concluded! Certainly it was not the value of the property
in controversy, not the amount of money to be paid, that led Great
Britain to that pertinacious resistance, bordering upon cavilling
and bad faith. It was the loss of an advantage in war--the loss of
the future advantage of operating upon the slave States through
their slave property, and which advantage would be lost if this
compensation was enforced,--which induced her to stand out so long
against her own stipulations, and the decisions of her own accepted
arbitrator.
This new or third treaty, making indemnity for these slaves, was
negotiated at London, November, 1826, between Mr. Gallatin on the
part of the United States, and Messrs. Huskisson and Addington
on the part of Great Britain. It commenced with reciting that
"difficulties having arisen in the execution of the convention
concluded at St. Petersburg, July 12th, 1822, under the mediation
of his majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, between the United
States of America and Great Britain, for the purpose of carrying
into effect the decision of his Imperial Majesty upon the
differences which had arisen between the said United States and
Great Britain as to the true construction and meaning of the first
article of the treaty of Ghent, _therefore_ the said parties agree
to treat again," &c. The result of this third negotiation was to
stipulate for the payment of a gross sum to the government of the
United States, to be by it divided among those whose slaves had
been carried off: and the sum of one million two hundred and four
thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars was the amount agreed upon.
This sum was satisfactory to the claimants, and was paid to the
United States for their benefit in the year 1827--just twelve years
after the conclusion of the war, and after two treaties had been
made, and two arbitrations rendered to explain the meaning of the
first treaty, and which fully explained itself. Twelve years of
persevering exertion to obtain the execution of a treaty stipulation
which solely related to private property, and which good faith and
sheer justice required to have been complied with immediately! At
the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, the President,
Mr. John Quincy Adams, was able to communicate the fact of the
final settling and closing up of this demand upon the British
government for the value of the slaves carried off by its troops.
The sum received was large, and ample to pay the damages; but that
was the smallest part of the advantage gained. The example and the
principle were the main points--the enforcement of such a demand
against a government so powerful, and after so much resistance, and
the condemnation which it carried, and the responsibility which it
implied--this was the grand advantage. Liberation and abduction
of slaves was one of the modes of warfare adopted by the British,
and largely counted on as a means of harassing and injuring one
half of the Union. It had been practised during the Revolution,
and indemnity avoided. If avoided a second time, impunity would
have sanctioned the practice and rendered it inveterate; and in
future wars, not only with Great Britain but with all powers, this
mode of annoyance would have become an ordinary resort, leading to
servile insurrections. The indemnity exacted carried along with
it the condemnation of the practice, as a spoliation of private
property to be atoned for; and was both a compensation for the past
and a warning for the future. It implied a responsibility which no
power, or art, or time could evade, and the principle of which being
established, there will be no need for future arbitrations.
I have said that this article in the treaty of Ghent for
restitution, or compensation, for deported slaves was brought
to a better issue than its parallel in the treaty of peace of
1783. By the seventh article of this treaty it was declared that
the evacuation (by the British troops) should be made "without
carrying away any negroes or other property belonging to the
American inhabitants." Yet three thousand slaves were carried away
(besides ten times that number--27,000 in Virginia alone--perishing
of disease in the British camps); and neither restitution nor
compensation made for any part of them. Both were resisted--the
restitution by Sir Guy Carleton in his letter of reply to
Washington's demand, declaring it to be an impossible infamy in a
British officer to give up those whom they had invited to their
standard; but reserving the point for the consideration of his
government, and, in the mean time, allowing and facilitating the
taking of schedules of all slaves taken away--names, ages, sex,
former owners, and States from which taken. The British government
resisted compensation upon the ground of war captures; that, being
taken in war, no matter how, they became, like other plunder, the
property of the captors, who had a right to dispose of it as they
pleased, and had chosen to set it free; that the slaves, having
become free, belonged to nobody, and consequently it was no breach
of the treaty stipulation to carry them away. This ground was
contested by the Congress of the confederation to the end of its
existence, and afterwards by the new federal government, from its
commencement until the claim for indemnity was waived or abandoned,
at the conclusion of Jay's treaty, in 1796. The very first message
of Washington to Congress when he became President, presented the
inexecution of the treaty of peace in this particular, among others,
as one of the complaints justly existing against Great Britain;
and all the diplomacy of his administration was exerted to obtain
redress--in vain. The treaties of '94 and '96 were both signed
without allusion to the subject; and, being left unprovided for in
these treaties, the claim sunk into the class of obsolete demands;
and the stipulation remained in the treaty a dead letter, although
containing the precise words, and the additional one "negroes,"
on which the Emperor Alexander took the stand which commanded
compensation and dispensed with arguments founded in the laws of
war. Not a shilling had been received for that immense depredation
upon private property; although the Congress of the confederation
adopted the strongest resolves, and even ordered each State to be
furnished with copies of the schedules of the slaves taken from it;
and hopes of indemnity were kept alive until extinguished by the
treaty of '96. It was a bitter complaint against that treaty, as the
Congress debates of the time, and the public press, abundantly show.
Northern men did their duty to the South in getting compensation
(and, what is infinitely more, establishing the principle that there
shall be compensation in such cases) for the slaves carried away
in the war of 1812. A majority of the commissioners at Ghent who
obtained the stipulation for indemnity were Northern men--Adams,
Russell, Gallatin, from the free, and Clay and Bayard from the slave
States. A Northern negotiator (Mr. Gallatin), under a Northern
President (Mr. John Quincy Adams), finally obtained it; and it is a
coincidence worthy of remark that this Northern negotiator, who was
finally successful, was the same debater in Congress, in '96, who
delivered the best argument (in my opinion surpassing even that of
Mr. Madison), against the grounds on which the British Government
resisted the execution of this article of the treaty.
I am no man to stir up old claims against the federal government;
and, I detest the trade which exhumes such claims, and deplore the
facility with which they are considered--too often in the hands of
speculators who gave nothing, or next to nothing, for them. But I
must say that the argument on which the French spoliation claim is
now receiving so much consideration, applies with infinitely more
force to the planters whose slaves were taken during the war of the
Revolution than in behalf of these French spoliation claims. They
were contributing--some in their persons in the camp or council,
all in their voluntary or tax contributions--to the independence
of their country when they were thus despoiled of their property.
They depended upon these slaves to support their families while
they were supporting their country. They were in debt to British
merchants, and relied upon compensation for these slaves to pay
those debts, at the very moment when compensation was abandoned by
the same treaty which enforced the payment of the debts. They had
a treaty obligation for indemnity, express in its terms, and since
shown to be valid, when deprived of this stipulation by another
treaty, in order to obtain general advantages for the whole Union.
This is something like taking private property for public use. Three
thousand slaves, the property of ascertained individuals, protected
by a treaty stipulation, and afterwards abandoned by another treaty,
against the entreaties and remonstrances of the owners, in order to
obtain the British commercial treaty of '94, and its supplement of
'96: such is the case which this revolutionary spoliation of slave
property presents, and which puts it immeasurably ahead of the
French spoliation claims prior to 1800. There is but four years'
difference in their ages--in the dates of the two treaties by which
they were respectively surrendered--and every other difference
between the two cases is an argument of preference in favor of
the losers under the treaty of 1796. Yet I am against both, and
each, separately or together; and put them in contrast to make one
stand as an argument against the other. But the primary reason for
introducing the slave spoliation case of 1783, and comparing its
less fortunate issue with that of 1812, was to show that Northern
men will do justice to the South; that Northern men obtained for
the South an indemnity and security in our day which a Southern
Administration, with Washington at its head, had not been able to
obtain in the days of our fathers.