Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/441

 of less than six hundred tons burden to engage in the traffic, whereas no vessel of that size could get across Charleston bar.

The patience of some of the northern members began at length to give way. Vining, of Delaware, thought the southern gentlemen ought to be satisfied with the alterations already made to please them. Some respect was due to the committee which had framed the report, and to the prevailing sentiment of the country. All the states, from Virginia to New Hampshire) had passed laws against the slave-trade. He entered also into a defense of the Quakers, many of whom were still present in the gallery, and whose treatment, by several gentlemen, he thought cruel and unjustifiable. Baldwin thought the regulation of the slave-trade had better be left to the states that tolerate it. He insinuated some doubts, though he would not venture to express a decided opinion, how far the power to regulate commerce gave to congress the right to pursue an individual citizen in his business between one foreign nation and another. Tucker pushed this argument to a much greater extent, denying the right of congress over citizens trading out of their jurisdiction, any further than to deprive vessels so employed of their American character. But, in spite of all the objections urged against it, the resolution, as modified by Madison, was adopted.

On the sixth resolution, that relating to the foreign slave-trade carried on from ports of the United States, Scott made an elaborate speech. "This was a subject," he remarked, "which had agitated the minds of most civilized nations for a number of years, and therefore what was said, and more particularly what was done in congress at this time, would, in some degree, form the political character of America' on the subject of slavery.

"Most of the arguments advanced had gone against the emancipation of such as were slaves already. But that question was not before the committee. The report under consideration involves no such idea. It was granted on all hands that congress have no authority to intermeddle in that business. I believe that the several states with whom that authority really rests will, from time to time, make such advances in the premises as justice to the master and slave, the dictates of humanity and sound policy, and the state of society will require or admit, and here I rest content.

"An advocate for slavery in its fullest latitude, in this age of the world, and on the floor of the American congress too, seems to me a phenomenon in politics. Yet such advocates have appeared, and many argumentative statements have been urged, to which I will only answer by calling on those who heard them to believe them if they can. With me they defy, yea, mock all belief."

But while conceding that slavery within the states was out of the constitutional reach of congress, Scott was not inclined to admit any limitation to the power of that body over the importation of slaves from abroad. "The clause relative to the free migration or importation, until 1808, of such persons as any of the states might see proper to admit, had indeed been urged as intended to cover this very case of the slave-trade, and the 'persons' referred to in