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That order is good for nothing at all.  It did not even describe the court correctly, under whose protection these unfortunate people were.  And on the 11th of January, the District Attorney had to send a special messenger, who came, it appears, all the way to Washington in one day, to inform the Secretary that the negroes were not holden under the order of the Circuit Court but of the District Court.  And he says, "Should the pretended friends of the negroes"- the pretended friends!- "obtain a writ of Habeas Corpus, the Marshal wishes me to inquire" - a most amiable and benevolent inquiry - "whether in the event of a decree requiring him to release the negroes, or in case of an appeal by the adverse part, it is expected the Executive warrant will be executed" - that is, whether he is to carry the negroes on board of the Grampus in the face of a decree of the court. And he requests instructions on the point. What a pretty thing it would have been, if he had received such instruction, in the face of a decree of the court! I should like to ask him which he would have obeyed. At least, it appears, he had such doubts whether he should obey the decree of the court, that he wanted instruction from the President. I will not say what temper it shows in the Marshal and the District Attorney.

On the 12th of January, the very next day after the letter of the District Attorney was written at New Haven, the Secretary of State replies in a dispatch which is marked "confidential."
"{CONFIDENTIAL.}
"DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Jan. 12, 1840.
"Sir, - Your letter of the 11th instant has just been received. The order for the delivery of the negroes of the Amistad is here with returned, corrected agreeably to your suggestion. With reference to the inquiry from the Marshal, to which you allude, I have to state, by direction of the President, that, if the decision of the court is such as is anticipated, the order of the President is to be carried into execution, unless an appeal shall actually have been interposed. You are not to take it for grated that it will be interposed. And if, on the contrary, the decision of the court s different, you are to take out an appeal, and allow things to remain as they are until the appeal shall have been decided.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"John Forsyth.
"W.S. HODABIRD, Esq.,
"Attorney U.S. for Dist. of Conn."

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Now, may it please your Honors, this corrected order, the final order of the President of the United States, is not in evidence, it does not appear among the documents communicated to Congress, and I feel some curiosity to know how it was corrected. I have heard it it intimated that the President of the United States never knew it had been changed, and that the alternative was made, perhaps by a clerk in the State Department, just by drawing his pen through the word circuit, and interlining the word district. I put it to your Honors to say what sort of regard is here exhibited for human life and for the liberties of these people. Did not the President know, when he sighed that order for the delivery of MEN to the control of an officer of the navy to be carried beyond seas, he was assuming a power that no President had ever assumed before? It is questionable whether such a power could have been exercised by the most despotic government of Europe. Yet this business was coolly dispatched by a mere informal order, which order was afterwards altered by a clerk.

The Secretary of State further instructs the District Attorney, that "if the decision of the Court shall be such as is anticipated, the order of the President is to be carried into execution, unless an appeal is actually interposed," and he is "NOT TO TAK IT FOR GRANTED THAT IT WILL BE INTERPOSED." The Government then confidently "anticipated" that the negroes would be delivered up; and the Attorney was directed not to allow them a moment of time to enter an appeal. They were to be put on board of the Grampus instantly, and deprived, if possible, of the privilege of appealing to the higher Courts. was this JUSTICE?

But after all, the order di not avail. The District Judge, contrary to all these anticipations of the Executive, decided that the thirty-six negroes taken by Lieut. Gedney and brought before the Court on the certificate of the Governor General of Cuba, were FREEMEN; that they had been kidnapped in Africa; that they did not own these Spanish names; that they were not ladinos, and were not correctly described in the passport, but were new negroes bought by Ruiz in the depot of Havana, and fully entitled to their liberty.

Such was the disposal intended, deliberately intended, by a President of the United States to be made, of the lives and liberty of