Van Buren did what any good politician would do. And that was to try to dodge the issue. Stay away from it. He couldnt understand why 40 plus by this time black people should affect anything happening in high political society.

　　But the Amistad issue would not go away. The case began in a circuit court. After three days it went to a district court. The district court judge ruled that the African slave trade was illegal under international treaties; for that reason, the Africans were wrongly taken.

　　Amistad Issue Reaches Nations Highest Court

　　President Van Buren was worried the decision would cause more political problems for him. So he ordered the nations highest court, the Supreme Court, to hear the case.

　　The chief justice of the Supreme Court at that time was Joseph Story. Story did not like slavery, but he did not support the abolitionist movement either. He thought its ideas opposed the rule of law.

　　The abolitionists had good lawyers, but they knew they needed more help arguing their case in the Supreme Court. So they turned to former president John Quincy Adams.

　　At the time, Adams was a congressman, not an abolitionist. But he led a campaign against an 1836 rule restricting anti-slavery petitions. Adams said the rule was a violation of the constitutional right to petition Congress. Historian Julie Jeffrey says the 1836 gag rule, as it was called, helped the abolitionists cause.

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