More Than the Author of the National Anthem

More Than the Author of the National Anthem

In 1820, a U.S. revenue cutter captured the slave ship Antelope off the coast of Florida with nearly 300 African slaves. Francis Scott Key was the defense counsel for the Africans, many of whom were just teenagers. Key fought to free the slaves in an expensive legal battle which dragged on for seven years.

Arguing their case before the Supreme Court in 1825, Francis Scott Key stated, as recorded by Henry S. Foote: "... greatly surpassed the expectations of his most admiring friends ... Key closed with ... an electrifying picture of the horrors connected with the African slave trade."

Jonathan M. Bryant wrote in Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope (2015): "Most startling of all, Key argued ... that all men were created equal ... If the United States had captured a ship full of white captives, Key asked, would not our courts assume them to be free? How could it be any different simply because the captives were black? ... "

Slavery was a dangerously hot subject, but Francis Scott Key stepped deliberately into the fire."

Bryant continued: "Key had unleashed all of his rhetorical weapons ... This was a case he believed in and had worked personally to bring before the Supreme Court.

"The Antelope was a Spanish slave ship that had been captured by privateers and then seized by a United States Revenue Marine cutter off the coast of Florida ..."

"Using clear precedent, poetic language, and appeals to morality, Francis Scott Key argued that the hundreds of African captives found aboard the Antelope should be returned to Africa and freedom.

United States law demanded it, he said.

The law of nations demanded it, he said.

Even the law of nature demanded it.

"Key looked into the eyes of the six justices sitting for the case, four of whom were slave owners, and announced that 'by the law of nature, all men are free.'"

Considered a shameful decision, the Supreme Court sadly chose to define slaves as property.

Only a portion of the slaves were returned to Africa where they founded the colony of New Georgia in Liberia.

In 1841, two years before his death, Francis Scott Key helped John Quincy Adams free 53 African slaves in the Amistad case.