The African Slave Trade: The Secret Purpose of the Insurgents to Revive It: No Treaty Stipulations Against the Slave Trade to Be Entered into with the European Powers: Judah P. Benjamin’s Intercepted Instructions to L.Q.C. Lamar

The background of this fascicle is as follows. The Confederacy, in which Judah P. Benjamin served as Secretary of State, entered into secret negotiations with the European powers to be recognized by them as an independent Nation. It was feared that the Europeans would require in exchange for recognition a stipulation on the part of the Confederacy forbidding the importation of slaves from Africa. Judah P. Benjamin parried by arguing that no stipulation was necessary, for the Confederacy was already legally bound to forbid African Slave Trade. A letter of Benjamin to this effect intended for Mr. L.Q.C. Lamar, Confederate envoy to the Russian government in St. Petersburg, was intercepted by the North, and Benjamin’s argument exposed as sophistry