Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/213

 CH. XXXII.] § 1330. Congress lost no time in interdicting the traffic, as far as their power extended, by a prohibition of American citizens carrying it on between foreign countries. And as soon, as the stipulated period of twenty years had expired, congress, by a prospective legislation to meet the exigency, abolished the whole traffic in every direction to citizens and residents. Mild and moderate laws were, how ever, found insufficient for the purpose of putting an end to the practice; and at length congress found it necessary to declare the slave-trade to be a piracy, and to punish it with death. Thus it has been elevated in the catalogue of crimes to this 'bad eminence' of guilt; and has now annexed to it the infamy, as well as the retributive justice, which belongs to an offence equally against the laws of God and man, the dictates of humanity, and the solemn precepts of religion. Other civilized nations are now alive to this great duty; and by the noble exertions of the British government, there is now every reason to believe, that the African slave-trade will soon become extinct; and thus another triumph of virtue will be obtained over brutal violence and unfeeling cruelty.

§ 1331. This clause of the constitution, respecting the importation of slaves, is manifestly an exception from the power of regulating commerce. Migration seems appropriately to apply to voluntary arrivals, as importation does to involuntary arrivals; and so far, as an exception from a power proves its existence, this proves, that the power to regulate commerce applies equally to the regulation of vessels employed in