Read: From John Quincy Adams' oral argument in favor of the defendants: There is the principle, on which a particular decision is demanded from this Court, by the Official Journal of the Executive, on behalf of the southern states? Is that a principle recognized by this Court? Is it the principle of that Declaration [of Independence]? It is alleged in the Official Journal, that war gives the right to take the life of our enemy, and that this confers a right to make him a slave, on account of having spared his life. Is that the principle on which these United States stand before the world? That Declaration says that every man is "endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights," and that among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If these rights are inalienable, they are incompatible with the rights of the victor to take the life of his enemy in war or to spare his life and make him a slave. If this principle is sound, it reduces to brute force all the rights of man. It places all the sacred relations of life at the power of the strongest. No man has a right to life or liberty if he has an enemy able to take them from him. There is the principle. There is the whole argument of this paper. Now I do not deny that the only principle upon which color of right can be attributed to the condition of slavery is by assuming that the natural state of man is war. The bright intellect of the South, clearly saw, that without this principle for a cornerstone, he had no foundation for his argument. From John Quincy Adams' oral argument in favor of the defendants: There is the principle, on which a particular decision is demanded from this Court, by the Official Journal of the Executive, on behalf of the southern states? Is that a principle recognized by this Court? Is it the principle of that Declaration [of Independence]? It is alleged in the Official Journal, that war gives the right to take the life of our enemy, and that this confers a right to make him a slave, on account of having spared his life. Is that the principle on which these United States stand before the world? That Declaration says that every man is "endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights," and that among these are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If these rights are inalienable, they are incompatible with the rights of the victor to take the life of his enemy in war or to spare his life and make him a slave. If this principle is sound, it reduces to brute force all the rights of man. It places all the sacred relations of life at the power of the strongest. No man has a right to life or liberty if he has an enemy able to take them from him. There is the principle. There is the whole argument of this paper. Now I do not deny that the only principle upon which color of right can be attributed to the condition of slavery is by assuming that the natural state of man is war. The bright intellect of the South, clearly saw, that without this principle for a cornerstone, he had no foundation for his argument.
Use context to determine the meaning of the word proprietor as it is used in the United States v. The Amistad. Write the definition of "proprietor" here and tell how you found it.