Washington Correspondence: For The Signal Of Liberty

Washington, April 24, 1844.A vigorous attempt Js mnking to procure from the Treasury of this nntíon $70,000 for Montez and Ruiz, tho claimant of the Amistad Africans. The main facts are wel! known. Anumberof men, women and chüdren, were torn from their home and country, by the lawless hands of brutal piracy: this immediately converted immortality into goods and chattels: after undergoing the honors ot a slave vessel, these victíms, with a spirit worthy of freemen, rcse upon the, sors, and asserted man's "inalienable' ■ right of Liberty. As freemen they ap 1 proached the American coast: they werc immediately seizcd and tried as pirates: the whole weight of a powerful government was used against them: its law officers became prosecutors: its head threw the presidential influence into the scale. He commissioned a war vessel of the Republic tothe ignoble service of taking them back to slavery, and stationed it at their place of trial, so ihat intheevent of an anticipated decisión against them they might be hurried aboard and taken offbefore a habeas corpus or appeal could be taken to the Supreme Court of the U. S. Justice however was superior to such unholy machinery: the case carne before the S. Court: the men were pronounced guiltless and discharged: they long since returned to their native country. Ruiz and Montez thus made a hard speculation, but American slavery has a heart which beats in sympathy with the enslaver everywhere: its tender benevolencebed in anguïsh for poor Rtiiz and Montez. and forthwith turns to its oíd panacea for all slaves disorders - the U. S. Treasury, filled almost entirely by northern revenue. Out of this Ruiz and Montez are to be paid the snug little sum of seventy thousand dollars, to compénsate their loss of the thews and sinews- the minds and bodïes, of the men and women they had torn from their nalive country. Only think of this measure of barefaced audacity- this piece of unblushing robbery. $70,000 to go from our treasury to foreigners- to pirates- to trafficers in a business even our own treaties have stigmatized as foul- and why is this sum to be paid to them? Merely because their man-speculation failed, and thatour Constitution was notsuchassustained their piracy.Therehave been many occasions during the revolutionary war, and the war ol 1814 when slaves were killed in the U. S. service: compensaron was frequently demanded for them, but invariablrj refused because the Constitution did not recognize slavery and regarded black men as persons and not things. The most remarkable instnnce, was the case of Francis Larch of New Orleans. His horse, cart and slave were prossed into the American service at the battle of New Orleans: the horse and man were killed, and the cart destroyed. He applied to Congress for remuneration: they paid him for the cart and horse, but not for the man. The report is to be found in vol. 3 of proceedingsofthelst session, 21st Congress, doe. 404, A. D. 1830. The U. S. never has paid íor a slave to its subjects even though lost in public service, vet forsooth the nation is now colled upon to pay for a whole cargo of frecmen- men never reduced into slavery- - : even by a semblance of the law of any nation under the sun: to pay ihat sum to entire strangers, with whom they had no intercourse, and who actually ought to have been tried for piraey or for knowingly receiving its fruits? And at the very time the public raoney is thussought te be lavished, a dollar cannot be had for northern improvements - for Lake harbors, or Rivers, unless after a hard fight, and the donation of a "quid pro quo" to the south, the "quid" preponderating as it has done by 3 or 4 dollars to the south for 1 to the north. The motives for this "Ruiz and Montez" donation are fourfold. lst,sympathy with the slave trade, the same feeling which prevenís íhe U.S. from cooperating with the rest of the world in a treaty for its suppression. 2nd, a rmddened feeling of disappointment that the Amistad affair proved a successful assertion of Liflerty. Such exhibitions as the Amistad and Creole assertions of right are horrible to the sensitive southern nerves and must be counteracted. 3d, a desire to cast a taint on the decisión of the Supreme Court, by by leaving the world to infer that the decisión was wrong, and thus procuring for all similar cases a precedent or decisión in Congressional Legislation, which failed to be had in the Court. 4th, a desire to cornmit this country to the mad doctrines advanced by southern men, when their slaves emancipated themselves on the Creóle. It was then asserted, that a ship carried wherever she went the law of her country: that Virginia law spread across the Ocean, and entered British poris with the Creóle, and that the slaves of Virginia were still then slaves in. sau. It was for disputing this doctrine, and saving the country from a war in its support that Mr. Giddings was censured in '42, but the people sustaiñed him so nobly,that the subject was immediatelyabandoned. The same doctrines were advanced when cnrgoes of slaves were driven by stress of weather from the American to the English coasts, and the slaves became free. England was required to pay for them. One of our Secretaries once declared that her refusal would be good ground for war. England never acknowledged the doctrine, and though she paldto avoid disputes, she declared officially she would never do so again. This same favorite doctrine was again advanced in the Amistad case, and it was contended that the vessel being Spanish, and her owners regarding the men on board as slaves, there was law enough to hold them slaves in the U. S. Our Supreme Court thought otherwise however, and now it would be very convenient to have the country committed nationally to this important southern doctrine, so that when a similar case shall nextoccuraffecting the South, the country may be bound to maintain it at the bayonets point, or roay compénsate the domestic, as it did the foreign sufferer, out of the national purse. Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, has promptly met this present iniquitous demand, as he has done many others, on the threshhold. He has declared war to the knife. The committee of Foreign AfFairs of course reported in favor of it andduced a bilí by thcir Chairman Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, of Pa. This jatter moved lately to print 10,000 copies of his laboured report taking dangerous and high proslavery ground. Mr. Giddings assailed tlie measure with great forcé and spirit. I could see Mr. Ingersoll quail under the onset at different places: although remarkable for sel f command, and a powerful debater, he could not forbear writhing. He was expected to have replied and defended lus report, but "discretion is the better part of valor." His bantling was rather of the tender order, so he said not a word, but silently permitted the subject to be on the table. The effort is said to have been one of Mr. Giddings best. He continúes very faithful to the cause, and spares no effort to thwart the unholy schemes of the South. Yet this 70,000 donation isalmost sure-of being consummated: it will result as all other determined Southern mensures do, in theirsuccess. Andso it will be until the freestates sha]] rise in their strength and absoiutely refuse to continue the victiins they ever have been to the South.