Amistad was a ship that carried slaves to the US. According to the owners of the ship, they came from Cuba. They had actually come from Africa where it was illegal to get slaves from. There was a trial to decide where the slaves on that ship came from, and there were different people who thought different things about the situation back then. Some people liked slavery, some hated it, and some avoided the situation altogether. Each one of these had good points to defend their case, but only one was a good one.
             The first group of people were the ones who wanted to keep slavery. Most of these men were from the south, such as John Calhoun. He said that he needed slaves to survive. Without them he wouldn't be able to maintain his plantation and his business would go belly up. He even went as far as to threaten to have South Carolina secede from the Union. People such as this are what kept slavery going on for a long time, and made it very difficult on some people to make decisions, such as President Martin Van Buren.
             Martin van Buren was one of those who didn't have a say in the slave controversy. Van Buren was running for president for a second time and didn't want to comment on the slave situation. He felt that if he said that slavery should be abolished, then he would loose all the votes in the south. If he said slavery was a great thing to have, then he would loose all the votes in the north. He made the smart choice and kept his mouth shut about the whole idea, but it didn't help him in the election at all. He ended up loosing it. There was the chance of winning it if he made a choice about the situation. Some of the people could've cared less what he thought about slavery, but he wanted to maintain the reputation of not having an opinion on the subject.
             The abolitionists had a big opinion though. They hated slavery, absolutely hated it. They made it part of their everyday life to try...