Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York

We have now reached that stage in this interesting trial where the duty has been assigned to me, by my associates in this defence, of presenting to you the state of facts and th...

Nor, gentlemen, do I hesitate to say that, whatever we may readily concede to an honest difference of opinion and feeling, in respect to great national contests, where men, with...

Your honor knows that, if we have any fact to go to the jury, they are getting into this case a crime of a very different character and of a deeper dye, for which they have made...

Now, let me consider the ninth section of the statute. I will readily concede to my learned friends whatever advantage they can gain from the proposition that, when the ninth se...

A statute, on this subject, enacted in 1819, expired by its own limitation; but on the 15th of May, 1820, an act was passed making further provisions for punishing the crime of...

The question, then, is, What was the state of things existing in Charleston, and in the Confederate States, at that time? In the course of the evidence, we will lay that before...

Now, if the Court please, the argument is a very simple one. This 9th section does not profess to carry the power of this Government where alone the principles of the law of nat...

But it is not necessary that the nation under whose commission he acts, shall be one which is already established and acknowledged among the family of nations. It may be a colon...

The case of _The United States_ vs. _Townsend_ has been brought to your honors' attention in the manuscript record of the preliminary proceedings. The prisoner, who had been tak...

Gentlemen, I will detain you but a few moments longer. I have endeavored to show, in the first place, that these men cannot be convicted of piracy, because they had not the inte...

Now, under what circumstances was this done? And in the discussion I give to this question I am entirely free from the necessity of considering how the Government of this countr...

_A._ I discovered, about mid-day, a vessel close in to Charleston. I stood off to make out what she was. A short time afterwards we discovered it was the Perry, and were surpris...

_A._ When near enough to be seen visibly to the eye, our men, Mr. Hayes, and the others, said she was a Yankee vessel; she was from the West Indies, laden with sugar and molasse...

Mr. Webster, I say, was a great man, because he could stand the test of being looked at very near, and he grew greater all the time. There is no incident in my life of which I c...

Well, with reference to offences committed at sea, the officers capturing a prize have a right to bring it into any port, it is true, and the port where the prisoners are brough...

Now, gentlemen of the Jury, but one word more on this speculative right of secession. It is founded, if at all, upon the theory, that the States, having been, anterior to the fo...

But the fact of retaliation, as a danger that may ensue from treating as pirates men engaged in war, is referred to by VATTEL in his treatise on the laws of nations. It is one o...

_Mr. Lord_: I was going to ask my friends on the other side to give us their authorities, so that we shall know what we are to go to the Jury upon. We would then be able to lay...

Now, then, under the facts already stated, including now the commission and the action under it, the taking of the Joseph was not piratical, under the ninth section, because the...

"If any person or persons owing allegiance to the United States of America shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the...

Now, with regard to force, I do not understand that my learned friends really make any question, seriously, upon the general principle of what force is, or upon the facts of thi...

Now, this enables me to repeat, with a clearer view derived from history, the proposition that the Confederate States are--_under the law of nations_, and the principles embodie...

_Sixth Count_: And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That Thomas Harrison Baker, late of the City and County of New York, in the District and...

This case has brought to my mind an interesting episode in ancient history, to which I beg permission to refer. For many years, the States of Greece had been engaged in bloody c...

The indictment under which the prisoners are tried contains ten counts. The first five are framed upon the third section of the Act of Congress of 1820, which is as follows: "Th...

_Mr. Sullivan_ said he did not desire a week's postponement, as he understood his honor had intimated that the Court would adjourn on Wednesday. As to the time of trial, he was...

Besides, this knowledge of facts enters a good deal into the theory of intent. So much has been said about the piratical intent, that I can pass this by in silence. But, with re...

Judge Cadwalader then refers to Grotius (Proleg., sec. 23), citing with approval the statement by Demosthenes of the rule of public law in the case of the invasion by Deiopeithe...

Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace and the lives an...

Let me illustrate further the absence of all reason to support the proposition that, until a formal acknowledgment of the existence of the Confederate States by the United State...

Well, gentlemen, with these facts staring you in the face, I ask you if it is not flying in the face of history--if it is not rejecting and trampling in the dust the glorious tr...

_Q._ In a capital case, where the evidence is sufficient to satisfy your mind of the prisoner's guilt, have you any conscientious scruples that would prevent your finding a verd...

3. That in such cases the citizen of a State which, in its political capacity, has come into forcible collision with the Federal Government, owing allegiance to both within the...

Now, gentlemen, it is quite true that the local legislatures were subject to the revision, as to their statutes, to a certain extent, of the sovereign power of England. The king...

Do I mention this in complaint? Not in the least. I only mention it to show you that the vote and the voice of this interest has not been defrauded in the artificial distributio...

"_Resolved_, That in a Government like that of the United States, where there are powers granted to the General Government and rights reserved to the States, it is impossible, f...

Then, gentlemen, to show the application of the rule for which I have been contending--and with the necessary details of which I fear I must have wearied you--to the case in han...

Now, this ninth section, I suppose, if your honors please,--and such I understand to be the views of Judge Sprague, as expressed by him to the Grand Jury, at Boston,--proceeds a...

Now, what is the duty of a Government that finds this assault made by the hands of terror and of force against the judgment and wishes of the discreet, sober, and temperate, at...

Your honors, by referring to the case of The Bello Corunnes, 6 Wheaton, 152, will see the doctrine laid down distinctly, that acts may be piratical for all civil purposes which...

"To the philosophic mind, how new and awful an instance do the United States at present exhibit to the people of the world! They exhibit, sir, the first instance of a people who...

It was intimated by the learned District Attorney, in his opening remarks, that in the event of a conviction, the President would exercise the pardoning prerogative. Gentlemen,...

Now, if the Court please, when it comes up for judicial inquiry, whether a case of privateering, under the law of nations, is fairly made out, and where the case arises during f...

"As it is _cepit_ and _asportavit_ so it must be _felonice_ or _animo furandi_, otherwise it is not felony, for it is the mind that makes the taking of another's goods to be a f...

We had another pressure on the subject of local dissatisfaction, in 1812; and then the seat of discontent and heresy was New England. I do not contend, and never did contend, in...

_A._ Yes, sir; from Field Point; I should judge, about 8 miles from Norfolk port, on the southern shore, nearly opposite Newport News. I was not there, but it was reported to me...

The natural consequences of his acts were, to take the vessel and send her to a port to be adjudicated upon as a prize. Now, I state to my learned friends and the Court this pro...

Produced by Robert Cicconetti and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet A...

Prior to the 23d March, 1776, the legislature of Massachusetts authorized the issuing of letters of marque to privateers upon the ocean, and when my learned friend, Mr. Lord, in...