Representative John Quincy Adams opposed slavery and spent years fighting the Gag Rule that suppressed discussion of the issue in Congress. He based his defense of the Amistad mutineers on their basic human rights, arguing that the Africans were free individuals, enslaved against their will, and not the property of Spanish slave traders.
The charge I make against the present Executive administration is that in all their proceedings relating to these unfortunate men, instead of that Justice…they have substituted Sympathy!—Sympathy, with one of the parties in this conflict of Justice—and Antipathy to the other. Sympathy, with the white—Antipathy to the black… .
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Draft of the Amistad brief [to the U.S. Supreme Court], by John Quincy Adams, ca. February 1841
The Amistad
In an 1841 Supreme Court case that was a rallying cause for abolitionists, Massachusetts Representative (and former President) John Quincy Adams argued for the rights of West African captives from the Spanish slave ship Amistad. The Africans had mutinied and attempted to sail homeward, but were eventually imprisoned by American authorities. Abolitionists made their case a legal test pitting individual human rights against property claims. Adams argued that racial prejudice underlay the U.S. prosecution of the Africans, and the Supreme Court ruled for their freedom.
Representative John Quincy Adams opposed slavery and spent years fighting the Gag Rule that suppressed discussion of the issue in Congress. He based his defense of the Amistad mutineers on their basic human rights, arguing that the Africans were free individuals, enslaved against their will, and not the property of Spanish slave traders.
The charge I make against the present Executive administration is that in all their proceedings relating to these unfortunate men, instead of that Justice…they have substituted Sympathy!—Sympathy, with one of the parties in this conflict of Justice—and Antipathy to the other. Sympathy, with the white—Antipathy to the black… .
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
