ARGUMENT OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES, APPELLANTS vs CINQUE AND OTHERS, AFRICANS. Adams, John Quincy:

On August 24, 1839, a United States revenue cutter seized a ship off of Long Island, landing it in New London Connecticut. Aboard the Amistad were fifty-three Africans, kidnapped in Sierra Leone and sold at a Havana, Cuba slave market. Led by Cinque, the slaves revolted aboard ship, killing the captain and other crew members. Tricked by the remaining sailors aboard into believing they would be returned to Africa, the ship sailed north to Long Island before being stopped. Connecticut jailed the Africans and charged them with murder; the Captain of the U.S. Revenue ship filed for salvage rights to the "cargo" (i.e. the slaves); Spanish officials demanded their extradition to Cuba. The Amistad case entered the federal courts to settle the various claims. President Martin Van Buren issued an order of extradition, but a New Haven federal court's decision preempted the return of the captives to Cuba, ruling that no one owned the Africans because they had been illegally enslaved. The Van Buren administration appealed the decision, and the case came before the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1841. Adams, then aged seventy-two and serving as a Congressman from Massachusetts, was approached by abolitionists Lewis Tappan and Ellis Gray Loring to represent the the Amistad captives and argue their case before the Supreme Court. His impassioned speech, published here for the first time, won the slaves their freedom: "The moment you come to the Declaration of Independence, that every man has a right to life and liberty, an inalienable right, this case is decided. I ask nothing more in behalf of these unfortunate men than this Declaration." BLOCKSON 101. BLOCKSON, COMMENTED 24. SABIN 254. WORK, p.344. LIBRARY COMPANY, AFRO-AMERICANA 63. Modern morocco backed cloth.