nted for solution. According to ancient
custom and law, slaves came as the bloody logic of war. War between
nations was of necessity international; but while this truth had stood
through many centuries, the conversion of the Northern nations of
Europe into organized society greatly modified the old doctrine of
slavery. Coming under the enlightening influences of modern
international law, war captives could not be reduced to slavery.[590]
This doctrine was thoroughly understood, doubtless, in the
North-American colonies as in Europe. But the almost universal
doctrine of property in the Negro, and his status in the courts of the
colonies, gave the royal army great advantage in the appropriation of
Negro captives, under the plea that they were "property," and hence
legitimate "spoils of war;" while, on the part of the colonists, to
declare that captured Negroes were entitled to the treatment of
"prisoners of war," was to reverse a principle of law as old as their
government. It was, in fact, an abandonment of the claim of property
in the Negro. It was a recognition of his rights as a soldier, a
bestowal of the highest favors known in the treatment of captives of
war.[591] But there was another difficulty in the way. Slavery had
been recognized in the venerable memorials of the most remote nations.
This condition was coeval with the history of all nations, but nowhere
regarded as a relation of a local character. It grew up in social
compacts, in organized communities of men, and in great and powerful
states. It was recognized in private international law; and the
relation of master and slave was guarded in their local _habitat_, and
respected wherever found.[592] And this relation, this property in
man, did not cease because the slave sought another nation, for it
was recognized in all the commercial transactions of nations. Now,
upon this principle, the colonists were likely to claim their right to
property in slaves captured.

The confederation of the new States was effected on the 1st of March,
1781. Art. IX. gave the "United States in Congress assembled" the
exclusive authority of making laws to govern the disposal of all
captures made by land or water; to decide which were legal; how prizes
taken by the land or naval force of the government should be
appropriated, and the right to establish courts of competent
jurisdiction in such case, etc. The first legislation under this
article was an Act establishing a court of a