Right Of Search in United States

Right Of Search Definition

See “Search, Right of;” 1 Kent, Comm. (9th Ed.) 153, note; 1 Phillim. Int. Law, 325.

Right Of Search in Foreign Legal Encyclopedias

Back to Top

For starting research in the law of a foreign country:

Browse the American Encyclopedia of Law for Right Of Search

Scan Right Of Search in the appropriate area of law:

Explore other Reference Works

Back to Top

Legal Issue for Attorneys

See “Search, Right of;” 1 Kent, Comm. (9th Ed.) 153, note; 1 Phillim. Int. Law, 325.

This definition of Right Of Search is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary. This entry needs to be proofread.

The Attitude of the United States and the State of the Slave-Trade and the International Status of the Slave-Trade (1783–1863)

In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: In 1824 the Right of Search was established between England and Sweden, and in 1826 Brazil promised to abolish the trade in three years.40 In 1831 the cause was greatly advanced by the signing of a treaty between Great Britain and France, granting mutually a geographically limited Right of Search.41 This led, in the next few years, to similar treaties with Denmark, Sardinia,42 the Hanse towns,43 and Naples.44 Such measures put the trade more and more in the hands of Americans, and it began greatly to increase. Mercer sought repeatedly in the House to have negotiations reopened with England, but without success.45 Indeed, the chances of success were now for many years imperilled by the recurrence of deliberate search of American vessels by the British.46 In the majo143rity of cases the vessels proved to be slavers, and some of them fraudulently flew the American flag; nevertheless, their molestation by British cruisers created much feeling, and hindered all steps toward an understanding: the United States was loath to have her criminal negligence in enforcing her own laws thus exposed by foreigners. Other international questions connected with the trade also strained the relations of the two countries: three different vessels engaged in the domestic slave-trade, driven by stress of weather, or, in the “Creole” case, captured by Negroes on board, landed slaves in British possessions; England freed them, and refused to pay for such as were landed after emancipation had been proclaimed in the West Indies.47 The case of the slaver “L’Amistad” also raised difficulties with Spain. This Spanish vessel, after the Negroes on board had mutinied and killed their owners, was seized by a United States vessel and brought into port for adjudication. The court, however, freed the Negroes, on the ground that under Spanish law they were not legally slaves; and although the Senate repeatedly tried to indemnify the owners, the project did not succeed.48

Such proceedings well illustrate the new tendency of the pro-slavery party to neglect the enforcement of the slave-trade laws, in a frantic defence of the remotest ramparts of slave property. Consequently, when, after the treaty of 1831, France and England joined in urging the accession of the United States to it, the British minister was at last compelled to inform Palmerston, December, 1833, that “the Executive at Washington appears to shrink from bringing forward, in an144y shape, a question, upon which depends the completion of their former object—the utter and universal Abolition of the Slave Trade—from an apprehension of alarming the Southern States.”49 Great Britain now offered to sign the proposed treaty of 1824 as amended; but even this Forsyth refused, and stated that the United States had determined not to become “a party of any Convention on the subject of the Slave Trade.”50

Estimates as to the extent of the slave-trade agree that the traffic to
North and South America in 1820 was considerable, certainly not much less than 40,000 slaves annually. From that time to about 1825 it declined somewhat, but afterward increased enormously, so that by 1837 the American importation was estimated as high as 200,000 Negroes annually. The total abolition of the African trade by American countries then brought the traffic down to perhaps 30,000 in 1842. A large and rapid increase of illicit traffic followed; so that by 1847 the importation amounted to nearly 100,000 annually. One province of Brazil is said to have received 173,000 in the years 1846–1849. In the decade 1850–1860 this activity in slave-trading continued, and reached very large proportions.

The traffic thus carried on floated under the flags of France, Spain, and Portugal, until about 1830; from 1830 to 1840 it began gradually to assume the United States flag; by 1845, a large part of the trade was under the stars and stripes; by 1850 fully one-half the trade, and in the decade, 1850–1860 nearly all the traffic, found this flag its best protection.51

Resources

Notes and References

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1893), Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcuta.

See Also

Further Reading

• Edward Bettle. Notices of Negro Slavery, as connected with Pennsylvania. (Read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Aug. 7, 1826. Printed in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Vol. I. Philadelphia, 1864.)
• Friedrich Kapp . Geschichte der Sklaverei in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Hamburg, 1861.
• Peter Force. American Archives, etc. In Six Series. Prepared and Published under Authority of an act of Congress. Fourth and Fifth Series. 9 vols. Washington, 1837–53.
• Johann J. Sell. Versuch einer Geschichte des Negersclavenhandels. Halle, 1791.
• Constitution of a Society for Abolishing the Slave-Trade. With Several Acts of the Legislatures of the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode-Island, for that Purpose. Printed by John Carter. Providence, 1789.
• George H. Moore . Slavery in Massachusetts. (In Historical Magazine, XV. 329.)
• William Goodell. The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice: its Distinctive Features shown by its Statutes, Judicial Decisions, and Illustrative Facts. New York, 1853.
• G. Wadleigh. Slavery in New Hampshire. (In Granite Monthly, VI. 377.)