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¶ … Amistad
In 1839 the United States was bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. The House of Representatives had enacted a gag order which effectively blocked any anti-slavery legislation from being discussed. Current President Martin Van Buren was in a tough re-election campaign and was looking to the South for support. Northern Abolitionists were in a state of frustration as every avenue had been blocked for them. Into this maelstrom sailed a tiny ship named the Amistad, which weeks earlier had been commandeered by it's cargo of slaves. This trial over those onboard would turn into a battle over the issue of Slavery itself and tear America apart. (Mintz)
The slaves had been captured illegally in Africa, sailed to Cuba and sold, and then were in the process of sailing to their final destination when the Africans rose up in rebellion, slaughter most of the crew, and forced the remaining crewmembers to sail the ship back to Africa. Unfortunately for the Africans, the two crewmembers tricked them and actually sailed a zigzag pattern until they ended up off the coast of America. It was there that they were captured by the Americans and forced into a court battle to determine their fate.
Northern Abolitionists flocked to the African's support and the legal battle took two years in which time...
The legal battle also involved an International component as the Spanish were insistent that their "property" be returned to them. President Van Buren, and his pro-slavery allies, attempted to use the court system to sabotage any chance of the African's release. Many pro-slavery proponents felt that this case was a battle over the principle of slavery, and the outcome could have tremendous consequences for the United States as a whole.
The case eventually made it's way to the Supreme Court of the United States where the African's side was argued by former President John Quincy Adams. During the previous trials the lawyers for the Africans had proven beyond a doubt that the Africans were indeed captured in Africa, making them illegally forced into slavery. Adams argued now that the Africans "were illegally enslaved. If the President could hand over free men on the demand of a foreign government, how could any man, woman, and child in the United States ever be sure of their 'blessing of freedom'?" (The Amistad Case NPG) With only one dissenting vote, the Supreme Court agreed and the Africans were ordered to be released and transported home.
This case was a significant…
In 1801, then president Thomas Jefferson sent an embassy to France to inquire about purchasing the port of New Orleans, instead, in 1803, the United States purchased the entire Louisiana Territory nearly doubling the size of the country. This new territory allowed the United States to expand into the West and was the beginning of the idea of Manifest Destiny; or the idea that the United States was destined to expand across the continent all the war to the Pacific Ocean. It also spelled the doom of the Native Americans who were forced to continually move west in order to make room for American settlement. (Kelly)
Marbury v. Madison
This was a particularly important case as it set the precedent that the Supreme Court of the United States had the power to declare a law unconstitutional. It began at the end of one president's term when John Adams appointed a number of new judges and Justices of the Peace in the last hours of his presidency. Upon taking office, the next President, Thomas Jefferson, not wanting a group of political enemies on important courts, ordered that the appointments not be delivered. One of those appointed as a Justice of the Peace, William Marbury took the official in charge of issuing the appointments, Secretary of State James Madison, to court. After some time, the case made it to the Supreme Court which ruled that the law on which Marbury based his case, the Judiciary Act of 1789, was unconstitutional. This was the very first time the Court had ruled something unconstitutional and it set the precedent which remains to this day. (Findlaw)
Amistad The story of the Amistad has become part of the less glamorous history in the United States and the wider Western world in terms of the human rights violation that was slavery. The story began in February 1839, when Portuguese slave traders violated all the treaties in existence at the time and abducted Africans from Sierra Leone in order to ship them to Cuba to be sold as slaves. In