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118 and for nearly two centuries, it was carried on without opposition and without censure." With all possible reverence for the memory of Chief Justice Marshall, and with all due respect for his argument in this case, I must here be permitted to say, that here begins its fallacy. He admits that throughout all Christendom, the victors in war have no right to enslave the vanquished. As between Christian nations therefore, slavery as a legitimate consequence of war is totally abolished. So totally abolished that slaves captured in war, cannot be held by the captors, as slaves; but must be emancipated, or exchanged as prisoners of war. But Africa, says the Chief Justice, still enslaves her captives in war, and for nearly two centuries, Europe and America purchased African slaves without "opposition and without censure." This may prove that the African slave-trade was heretofore, not contrary to the international law of Europe and of Christendom. But how was it, when the Antelope was in judgment before Christian Admiralty Courts in 1820-21, and '25? How is it now? For nearly forty years it has been prohibited by the laws of the United States, as a crime of enormous magnitude - and when the Antelope was tried by their judicial Courts, it was proclaimed piracy, punishable with death- It was piracy by the laws of Great Britain. By the 10th Article of the Treaty of Ghent, concluded on the 24th of December, 1814, between Great Britain and the United States, the traffic in slaves had been declared irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and both parties did thereby stipulate and contract to use their best endeavors to promote its entire abolition. On the 8th of February, 1815, the Ambassadors at the Congress of Vienna, from Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden, had issued a Declaration, "in the face of Europe, that considering the universal abolition of the slave-trade as a measure worthy of their attention, conformable to the spirit of the times, and to the generous principles of their august Sovereigns, they are animated with the sincere desire of concurring in the most prompt and effectual execution of this measure, by all the means at their disposal, and of acting in the employment of those means with all the zeal and perseverance which is due to so noble a cause." And again, 119 "In communicating this Declaration to the knowledge of Europe, and of all civilized countries, the said plenipotentiaries hope to prevail on every other Government, and particularly on those which in abolishing the slave trade have already manifested the same sentiments, to give them their support in a cause, the final triumph of which will be one of the noblest monuments of the age which embraced it, and which shall have brought it to a glorious termination." On the 20th of May, 1814, Louis the 18th, on his first restoration, had stipulated by treaty with Great Britain, to unite all his efforts with hers, at this then approaching Congress of Vienna, to induce all the Powers of Christendom to decree the abolition of the slave-trade, so that the said trade should cease, universally, as it should cease definitely, under any circumstances, on the part of France, within five years. Within one year from that time, the Emperor Napoleon, on the 29th of March, 1815, upon his return from Elba, within the hundred days of his authority, decreed the immediate and total abolition of the slave-trade on the part of France - which decree Louis the 18th, upon his second restoration, repeated and confirmed - and on the 20th of November, 1815, a Treaty, of which the following was one of the Articles, was concluded between Great Britain and France. "The high contracting powers, sincerely desiring to give effect to the measures on which they deliberated at the Congress of Vienna, relative to the complete and universal abolition of the slave-trade, and having each in their respective dominions, prohibited without restriction, their colonies and subjects from taking any part whatever in this traffic, engage to renew conjointly their efforts, with the view of securing signal success to those principles, which they proclaimed in the Declaration of the 8th of February, 1815, and of concerting without loss of time, through their ministers at the Courts of London and of Paris, the most effectual measures for the active and definitive abolition of a commerce so odious and so strongly condemned by the laws of religion and of nature." Spain had not been a party to the Declaration of the Allied Powers, at the Congress of Vienna, of 8th of February, 1815 - but in a treaty with Great Britain, concluded on the 20th of August, 1814, his Catholic Majesty, concurring in the fullest manner in
