Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/447

 situation of things. The motion finally prevailed by a vote of twenty-nine to twenty-live, and the report was entered on the journal as follows:

"That the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, can not be prohibited by congress prior to the year 1808.

"That congress have no right to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, in any of the states, it remaining with the several states alone to provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy require.

"That congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave-trade for the purpose of supplying foreigners with slaves, and of providing by proper regulations for the humane treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by the said citizens into the said states admitting such importation.

"That congress have also authority to prohibit foreigners from fitting out vessels in any port of the United States for transporting persons from Africa to any foreign port."

On the 22d of December, 1789, North Carolina passed an act ceding, on certain conditions, all her territory lying west of her present limits, to the United States. Among the conditions is the following:

"Provided always, that no regulations, made or to be made, by congress, shall tend to emancipate slaves."

The conditions exacted were acceded to by congress in an act approved April 2, 1790. No report of the debate on the passage of the act exists.

Vermont was admitted into the Union Feb. 18, 1791. The constitution under which she came in was originally adopted in 1777, and had been slightly altered in 1785. The first article of the Bill of Rights declared that "no male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be bound by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice after he arrives at the age of twenty-one years, nor female, in like manner, after she arrives at the age of twenty-one years, unless they are bound by their own consent after they arrive at such age, or are bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like" This provision was contained in the