United States v. Amistad

About the Author

When the Amistad case was argued beginning in February 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court was composed of Chief Justice Roger Taney of Maryland, Smith Thompson of New York, John McLean of Ohio, Henry Baldwin of Pennsylvania, James Wayne of Georgia, Philip Barbour of Virginia, John Catron of Tennessee, John McKinley of Alabama, and Joseph Story of Massachusetts. Taney, Barbour, Catron, McKinley, and Wayne had all owned slaves. Moreover, McLean, Wayne, Baldwin, Taney, and McKinley had been appointed to the Court by Democratic presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Generally Democrats supported the institution of slavery, and Van Buren’s administration was adamantly opposed to freeing the Amistad blacks. But there were two members of the Court who were not only less friendly to slavery but were not friendly to Van Buren. Justice Smith Thompson was the circuit justice for Connecticut and as such had heard the petition and the appeals that had confirmed that the blacks were free. The other justice was Joseph Story, author of the opinion in the case. When the case was argued in February and March 1841, Justice McKinley was ill, and during the course of the multiday arguments Justice Barbour died. So when the decision was announced, six justices joined in the opinion of Justice Story, and only one justice, Henry Baldwin, dissented.

Joseph Story, born on September 18, 1779, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, was appointed by President James Madison in 1811 at age thirty-two, the youngest person to ever serve on the Court. Despite his inexperience, he became one of the most distinguished justices in the history of the Court. By the time of the Amistad decision, he was the senior member. He was also a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of numerous legal treatises. Story had been an ally of Chief Justice John Marshall, and the two laid the cornerstones of the federal government and the judiciary. At the time of the Amistad case, Story’s views on slavery were well known. He had spoken out publicly in a Salem, Massachusetts, town meeting against slavery and the Missouri Compromise. His judicial record clearly exhibited his distaste for the illegal slave trade. However, there were limits to Story’s judicial philosophy. In 1842 he authored the lead opinion in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, which held that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 preempted all state law to the contrary. Story did attempt to limit his ruling by stating that states were not required to enforce the federal statute, only that states could not enact statutes that tried to subvert the federal act. However, Story’s opinion earned him no credit with abolitionists. Despite his personal opinion of slavery, Story’s opinions demonstrated his strict adherence to the law and facts. Story died on September 10, 1845.