My dear sir,—I have been much gratified by your letter of Jan. 12, which I have just received with the newspaper containing an able article on ‘War with
England.’
I agree with you entirely with regard to the ‘
Creole’ affair,—except, perhaps, that I go further than you do.
In the first place,
England cannot deliver up the slaves who are not implicated in the mutiny and murder by which the government of the ship was overthrown.
She has laid down a rule not to recognize property in human beings since the date of her great Emancipation Act. The principle of this is very clear.
She will not in any way lend her machinery of justice to execute foreign laws which she has pronounced immoral, unchristian, and unjust.
She had not so pronounced until her Act of Emancipation.
It is common learning among jurists, that no nation will enforce contracts or obligations of an immoral character, even though not regarded as immoral in the country where they were entered into.
Thus, in
Algiers, the wages of prostitution may be recoverable in the courts, or a contract of concubinage may be enforced (I merely put these cases, without absolute knowledge that such could arise); but the courts of
England, and—thank God!—of the
United States, would peremptorily decline to recognize the validity of any promise or contract arising from such impurities.
So must it be now with
England.
To her, slavery is worse than polygamy and concubinage.
She cannot be called upon in any way to acknowledge the legal existence of a relation which she has denounced as a crime
majoris abollo;.
Next, as to the slaves, participators in the mutiny and murder.
Their case is not so clear as that of the others; but, nevertheless, sufficiently clear
