Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/441

 expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, whilst others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho’ not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

But whatever may have been intended by the term “migration” or the term “persons”, it is most certain, that they referred, exclusively, to a migration or importation from other countries into the U. States; and not to a removal, voluntary or involuntary, of Slaves or freemen, from one to another part of the U. States. Nothing appears or is recollected that warrants this latter intention. Nothing in the proceedings of the State conventions indicates such a construction there. Had such been the construction it is easy to imagine the figure it would have made in many of the states, among the objections to the constitution, and among the numerous amendments to it proposed by the state conventions, not one of which amendments refers to the clause in question.…