Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/393

Rh sought to avoid the admission of expressions which might be odious in the ears of Americans, although they were willing to admit into their system those things which the expressions signified; and hence it is the the clause is so worded as really to authorize the general government to impose a duty of ten dollars on every foreigner who comes into a state to become a citizen, whether he comes absolutely free, or qualifiedly so as a servant; although this is contrary to the design of the framers, and the duty was only meant to extend to the importation of slaves.

This clause was the subject of a great diversity of sentiment in the Convention. As the system was reported by the committee of detail, the provision was general, that such importation should not be prohibited, without confining it to any particular period. This was rejected by eight states—Georgia, South Carolina, and, I think, North Carolina, voting for it.

We were then told by the delegates of the two first of those states, that their states would never agree to a system which put it in the power of the general government to prevent the importation of slaves, and that they, as delegates from those states, must withhold their assent from such a system.

A committee of one member from each state was chosen by ballot, to take this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to agree upon some report which should reconcile those states. To this committee also was referred the following proposition, which had been reported by the committee of detail, viz.: "No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two thirds of the members present in each house"—a proposition which the staple and commercial states were solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should be placed too much under the power of the Eastern States, but which these last states were as anxious to reject. This committee—of which also I had the honor to be a member—met, and took under their consideration the subjects committed to them. I found the Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion to slavery, were very willing to indulge the Southern States at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the slave trade, provided the Southern States would, in their turn, gratify them, by laving no restriction on navigation acts; and after a very little time, the committee, by a great majority, agreed on a report, by which the general government was to be prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time, and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted.

This report was adopted by a majority of the Convention, but not without considerable opposition. It was said that we had just assumed a place among independent nations, in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to enslave us; that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation of those rights to which God and nature had entitled us, not in particular, but in common with the rest of all mankind—that we had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of freedom, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the rights which he had thus imparted to his creatures—that now, when we scarcely had risen from our knees, from supplicating his aid and protection, in forming our government over a free people,—a government formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its preservation,—in that government to have a provision not only putting it out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade, but even encouraging that most 32