[BroJoeK]

woodpusher quoting CJ John Marshall from The Antelope, 23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 66 (1825).: "That it [slavery] is contrary to the law of nature will scarcely be denied.
That every man has a na­tural right to the fruits of his own labour, is ge­nerally admitted; and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits, and appro­priate them, against his will, seems to be the ne­cessary result of this admission.

"But from the earliest times war has existed, and war confers rights in which all have acquiesced.
Among the most enlightened nations of antiquity, one of these was, that the victor might enslave the van­quished. "

The 1825 Antelope was a complicated case, not as famous as Le Armistad in 1841, but like Armistad it resulted in freedom for most of the surviving slaves.

In woodpusher's lengthy quote Chief Justice Marshall declares his repugnance for slavery in principle, but also implies that as a Justice, he cannot simply declare it abolished, because slavery is recognized in, we would say, "settled law".

In that, Marshall was entirely typical of our Founders and in the end, about 80% of the surviving slaves were freed.

So once again, woodpusher's quotes support my arguments.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"woodpusher quoting CJ John Marshall from....

There is a rather (both) hilarious and hypocritical commentary in this.

The haters of our Founders, those who would call them racist and thus - everything they ever touched, said, or did, must be deleted, chopped down, and burned to the ground and never spoken of again.

Can't find time to remember that John Marshall was a slave owner. And they quote him regularly and gleefully. Why isn't Marshall a racist? You're quoting a racist? Why shouldn't everything and every aspect of Marshall's legacy be eliminated due to its inherent racism? Did Marshall ever free his slaves? Did Marshall ever agree that all blacks ought to be deported back to Africa?

(I don't support this, mind you, I'm just noting how the haters rely upon that which they purport to hate. They don't actually care about any of this. It's just a convenient cudgel they can use to manipulate discussions. If they actually cared about this, they wouldn't quote Marshall.)

[woodpusher]

The 1825 Antelope was a complicated case, not as famous as Le Armistad in 1841, but like Armistad it resulted in freedom for most of the surviving slaves.

There is no evidence that you have ever read a court opinion in your life, and any such evidence is sorely lacking here.

woodpusher's lengthy quote Chief Justice Marshall declares his repugnance for slavery in principle, but also implies that as a Justice, he cannot simply declare it abolished, because slavery is recognized in, we would say, "settled law".

that, Marshall was entirely typical of our Founders and in the end, about 80% of the surviving slaves were freed.

You are a loon.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/chief-justice-john-marshall-slaves/619160/

America's 'Great Chief Justice' was an Unrepentant Slaveholder

John Marshall not only owned people; he owned many of them, and aggressively bought them when he could.

By Paul Finkelman

June 15, 2021

Updated at 4:58 p.m. ET on June 24, 2021

[...]

Marshall's pattern of acquisition, recorded in his notebooks (which are also published in The Papers of John Marshall), began when he was a young lawyer. These record books show that in October 1783, Marshall bought a man named Moses for £74. On July 1, 1784, he paid just over £90 for a man named Ben. Three days later, on the Fourth of July, he bought two unnamed children for £30, who the editors of Marshall's papers believe were two young boys named Edey and Harry. He also paid £20 "in part for two servants." In September, he spent another £25 for unnamed and uncounted "servants." In November, he bought two more people, Kate and Esau. He also purchased Harry that year. Over 12 months, Marshall bought nine people whose names he provides, plus other unnamed and uncounted people. In November 1786, he paid £50 for two unnamed people. In April 1787, he bought Israel for £55 and in May spent another £55 for "a Woman bought in Gloster." On June 3, he made a down payment of less than £11 for two more people. As he had in 1784, he spent Independence Day in 1787 buying people—this time a woman and her child, both of whom he passed on to his father-in-law. That day he also paid money he owed on another enslaved person. In August, he paid £30 for people he had bought in Gloucester, Virginia, and bought another unnamed "negroe man" for £47.

I did not know that was typical for a Founder, but if you say so.

Marshall's political views reflected his practice of human enslavement. He vigorously opposed the presence of free Black people in his state. In 1831, in the wake of Nat Turner's rebellion in rural Virginia, he petitioned the state legislature to appropriate funds for the "urgent expedience of getting rid in some way, of the free coloured population of the Union." Marshall blamed the Turner rebellion on free Black people, which was absurd, because no free Black people were associated with the rebellion and enslaved people in the county outnumbered free Black people by more than four to one.

[...]

More significant, Marshall's jurisprudence also reflected his personal hostility to free Black people. As the chief justice of the United States, Marshall wrote the Supreme Court's opinion in seven cases involving claims of Black freedom. In some of these cases, people held in slavery had won their freedom in jury trials in Washington, D.C., where only white men, many of whom were slaveholders, sat on juries. Under D.C. law, slaveholders who moved into the city had to register their enslaved people within a certain time period or the people would become free. Juries often decided in favor of Black people claiming their freedom, because the facts and the law were on their side. But in every one of the cases for which Marshall wrote the Court's opinion, the Black people lost, even when they had won in the trial court.

You think, "Marshall was entirely typical of our Founders and in the end, about 80% of the surviving slaves were freed." If your very careful research led you to that conclusion, well bless your heart.

Marshall was kind of typical for a Founder in that ten of the first twelve Presidents were slave owners. From 1789 to 1850, only eight years saw a President who was not a slave owner.

The Antelope, 10 Wheat. (23 U.S.) 66 (1825), MARSHALL, CJ

You should stop making believe you have read a court opinion that you have not read.

I know what you did. You read a Wikipedia article about the case, but Wikipedia was too complicated for you to follow. The actual Opinion of the Court was sixty-eight pages long. I would not expect you to read it before telling the world all about it.

You found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antelope

Result

The Supreme Court dismissed the claim by John Smith for return of the Antelope as a prize of war. It calculated that the privateer had taken 93 Africans on the Antelope and 183 from the ships flying the Portuguese flag, noting a lack of proof of the actual nationality of those ships.

One hundred twenty survivors of the Africans found on the Antelope were sent to Liberia in July 1827. The people from the Antelope were settled in a new colony, called New Georgia after their home of the prior seven years. Approximately 30 slaves were ruled to be the property of the Spanish claimants and went to slavery in Florida; since no one could determine which ship a given slave came from, the 30 were randomly selected.

It's a little hard to follow. That John Smith character was the captain of the ship that seized the slave ship The Antelope. He thought he should get to keep the slave ship. Nope.

The Decree, on the sixty-eighth page of the Opinion, stated:

DECREE. This cause came on to be heard, &c.; On consideration whereof, this Court is of opinion, that there is error in so much of the sentence and decree of the said Circuit Court, as directs the restitution to the Spanish claimant of the Africans in the proceedings mentioned, in the ratio which one hundred and sixty-six bears to the whole number of those which remained alive at the time of pronouncing the said decree; and also in so much thereof, as directs restitution to the Portuguese claimant; and that so much of the said decree ought to be reversed, and it is hereby reversed and annulled. And this Court, proceeding to give such decree as the said Circuit Court ought to have given, doth DIRECT and ORDER, that the restitution to be made to the Spanish claimant, shall be according to the ratio which ninety-three (instead of one hundred and sixty-six) bears to the whole number, comprehending as well those originally on board the Antelope, as those which were put on board that vessel by the Captain of the Arraganta. After making the apportionment according to this ratio, and deducting from the number the rateable loss which must fall on the slaves to which the Spanish claimants were originally entitled. the residue of the said ninety-three are to be delivered to the Spanish claimant, on the terms in the said decree mentioned; and all the remaining Africans are to be delivered to the United States, to be disposed of according to law; and the said decree of the said Circuit Court is, in all things not contrary to this decree, affirmed.

Prefacing the Opinion in the U.S. Reports, the reporter included what is called the syllabus. It is written by the reporter and provides a brief summary of the holdings in the case, written in simple terms for the public. Here is that syllabus:

The African slave trade is contrary to the law of nature, but is not prohibited by the positive law of nations.

Although the slave trade is now prohibited by the laws of most civilized nations, it may still be lawfully carried on by the subjects of those nations who have not prohibited it by municipal acts or treaties.

The slave trade is not piracy, unless made so by the treaties or statutes of the nation to whom the party belongs.

The right of visitation, and search does not exist in time of peace. A vessel engaged in the slave trade, even if prohibited by the laws of the country to which it belongs, cannot, for that cause alone, be seized on the high seas, and brought in for adjudication, in time of peace, in the courts of another country. But if the laws of that other country be violated, or the proceeding be authorized by treaty, the act of capture is not in that case unlawful.

It seems, that in case of such a seizure, possession of Africans is not a sufficient evidence of property, and that the onus probandi is thrown upon the claimant, to show that the possession was lawfully acquired.

Africans who are first captured by a belligerent privateer, fitted out in violation of our neutrality, or by a pirate, and then recaptured and brought into the ports of the United States, under a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the Slave Trade was intended, are not to be restored without full proof of the proprietary interest; for in such a case the capture is lawful.

And whether, in such a case, restitution ought to be decreed at all, was a question on which the Court was equally divided.

Where the Court is equally divided, the decree of the Court below is of course affirmed so far as the point of division goes.

Although a consul may claim for subects unknown of his nation, yet restitution cannot be decreed without specific proof of the individual proprietary interest.

The Court found that the slaves should be returned upon a proper claim of ownership. Nobody ever came forth to provide specific proof of ownership of the slaves claimed by the Portuguese Consul. The appearance was that the owner was an American owner using a Portuguese flagged ship to skirt U.S. law; and he couldn't come forward without incriminating himself.

The Claim of the Spanish Consul resulted in restitution of slaves. The unclaimed property from the Portuguese flagged ship was to be disposed of by the United States.

The case was remanded to the lower court to dispose of the unclaimed slaves. This resulted in he United States sending off unclaimed slaves to Liberia.