First. When the federal government was formed, all the family of European nations was slaveholding; and they all alike held the Africans as unquestioned and legitimate subjects of bondage. The slave trade was held by publick law as legitimate as the trade in corn. It was the subject of treaty stipulations between the several powers; and slave trading companies were formally chartered and protected by all the leading powers. Slaves were declared by the English judges to be merchandise.[45] They were universally held legal prize of war when taken on the high seas.[46] They were recognized subjects of reclamation in forming and executing treaties. Thus, not to go outside of our own history, we find General Washington, in 1783, by order of Congress, remonstrating with the British commander evacuating New York city, because certain officers of the retiring forces carried away with them the fugitive slaves of American citizens; and the latter was compelled to surrender the attempt, as an unauthorized spoliation of property.[47] In 1788, the Government of the United States claimed of Spain the return of fugitive slaves from the Spanish colony of Florida;[48] and our government promised, in return, the rendition of Spanish slaves found in the United States. It is well known that the treaty of the United States with Great Britain, negotiated by Mr. Jay, and ratified by President Washington, and the treaty of Ghent, in 1815, both secured indemnities for slaves of American citizens abducted during the two wars; thus treating them as property under the protection of national law in America, and of the law of nations. In face of this array of facts, we boldly ask, with what face it can be asserted that slavery was not recognized by international law? Whether it is not as consonant with the law of nature as of nations, will appear at another place. [Footnote 45: Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 414.] [Footnote 46: Moore's Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 162.] [Footnote 47: Justice Campbell, in Howard, 19th, Dred Scott Case.] [Footnote 48: Idem.]