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The United States must be regarded as comprehending free States as well as slave States:-States which do not recognize slaves as property, as well as States which do so regard them. When all speak as a nation, general expressions ought to be construed to mean what all understand to be included in them; at all events, what may be included consistently with the law of nature. 

The 9th article of the Spanish Treaty was copied from the 16th article of the Treaty with France, concluded in 1778, in the midst of the war of the Revolution, in which the great principles of liberty proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence were vindicated by our fathers. 

By "merchandise rescued from pirates," the contracting parties must have had in view property, which it would be the duty of the public ships of the United States to rescue from its unlawful possessors. Because if it is taken from those who are rightfully in possession, the capture would be wrongful, and it would be our duty to restore it. But is it a duty which our naval officers owe to a nation tolerating the slave trade, to subdue for their kidnappers the revolted victims of their cruelty? Could the people of the United States, consistently with the principles as a nation, have ever consented to a treaty stipulation which would impose such a duty on our naval officers? -a duty which would drive every citizen of a free State from the service of his country? Has our Government, which has been so cautious as not to oblige itself to surrender the most atrocious criminals, who have sought an asylum in the United States, bound itself under the term "merchandise," to seize and surrender fugitive slaves?

The subject of the delivery of fugitives was under consideration before and during the negotiation of the Treaty of San Lorenzo; and was purposely omitted in the Treaty. Sec. 10 Waite's State Papers, 151, 433. Our Treaties with Tunis and Algiers contain similar expressions, in which both parties stipulate for the protection of the property of the subjects of each within the jurisdiction of the other. The Algerine regarded his Spanish captive as property; but was it ever supposed that if an Algerine corsair should be seized by the captive slaves on board of her, it would be the duty of our naval officers or our Courts of Admiralty to re-capture and restore them?

The phraseology of the entire article in the Treaty, clearly shows that it was intended to apply only to inanimate things, or irrational animals; such as are universally regarded as property. It is "merchandise rescued from the hands of pirates and robbers on the high seas"