Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/469

 to presume, then, that the citizens of the south will entertain no particular partiality for these wicked traffickers, but will be ready to subject them to the most exemplary punishment So far as the people of Connecticut are concerned, I am sure that, should any citizen of the north be convicted under this law, so far from thinking it cruel in their southern brethren to hang them, such a punishment of such culprits would be acknowledged with gratitude as a favor."

The southern members all opposed the punishment of death as too severe to be carried into execution.-'A large majority of the people in the southern states," said Early, "do not consider slaveholding as a crime. They do not believe it immoral to hold men in bondage. Many deprecate slavery as an evil — a political evil — but not as a crime. Reflecting men apprehend incalculable evils from it some future day, but very few consider it a crime. It is best to be candid on this subject. If they considered the holding men in slavery as a crime, they would necessarily accuse themselves. I will tell the truth, a large majority of people in the southern states do not consider slavery even an evil. Let gentlemen go and travel in that quarter of the union, and they will find this to be the fact."

Holland, of North Carolina, gave a similar account of the public sentiment of the south: "Slavery is generally considered a political evil, and, in that point of view, nearly all are disposed to stop the trade for the future. But has capital punishment been usually inflicted on offenses merely political? Fine and imprisonment are the common punishments in such cases. The people of the south do not generally consider slaveholding as a moral offense. The importer might say to the informer, I have done no worse than you, nor even so bad. It is true, I have brought these slaves from Africa; but I have only transported them from one master to another. I am not guilty of holding human beings in bondage; you are. You have hundreds on your plantation in that miserable condition. By your purchase you tempt traders to increase that evil which your ancestors introduced into the country, and which you yourself contribute to augment. And the same language the importer might hold to the judge or jury who might try him. Under such circumstances, the law inflicting death could not be executed. But if the punishment should be fine and imprisonment only, the people of the south will be ready to execute the law." Holland, like all the other southern speakers on this subject, wished to place the prohibition of the slave-trade on political, and not on moral grounds. The negroes, he said, brought from Africa were unquestionably brought from a state of slavery. All admitted that, as slaves, they were infinitely better off in America than in Africa. How, then, he argued, could the trade be immoral?

The infliction of capital punishment was also objected to by Stanton, one of the democratic members from Rhode Island. "Some people of my state," he remarked, "have been tempted by the high price offered for negroes by the southern people to enter into this abominable traffic. I wish the law made strong enough to prevent the trade in future, but I can not believe that a man