XIX. CHAPTER ally cosnidered a political evil, and, in that point of view, nearly all are disposed to stop the trade for the future. 1806. But has capital punishment been usually inflicted on of fenses 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 XIX. ought to be hung for only stealing a negro !"-a declara- CHAPTER tion received by the House with a loud laugh. "Those who buy are as bad as those who import, and deserve 1806. hanging just as much." "We are told," said Theodore Dwight, of Connecticut, "that morality has nothing to do with this traffic; that it is not a question of morals, but of politics. The president, in his message at the opening of the session, has expressed a very different opinion. He speaks of this traffic as a violation of human rights, which those who regarded morality, and the reputation and best interests of the country, have long been eager to prohibit. The gentleman from North Carolina has argued that, in importing Africans, we do them no harm; that we only transfer them from a state of slavery at home to a state of slavery attended by fewer calamities here. But by what authority do we interfere with their concerns? Who empowered us to judge for them which is the worse and which the better state? Have these miserable beings ever been consulted as to their removal? Who can say that the state in which they were born, and to which they are habituated, is not more agreeable to them than one altogether untried, of which they have no knowledge, and about which they can not even make any calculations? Let the gentleman ask his own conscience whether it be not a violation of human rights thus forcibly to carry these wretches from their home and their country ?" Clay insisted that capital punishments under this law could not be carried into execution even in Pennsylvania, of which state it had been the policy to dispense with the penalty of death in all cases except for murder in the first degree. But on this point Findley and Smilie expressed very decidedly an opposite opinion. This was crime, they said, above murder; it was man-stealing add XIX. CHAPTER ed to murder. In spite, however, of all efforts, the substitution of imprisonment for death prevailed by a vote 1907. of sixty-three to fifty-two. Jan. 5. Another attempt was afterwards made by Sloan, of New Jersey, to strike out the forfeiture clause; but he could not even succeed in obtaining the yeas and nays upon it. Three days after, the bill having been engrossed Jan. 8. and the question being on its passage, the Northern members seemed suddenly to recollect themselves. Again it was urged that by forfeiting the slaves imported, and putting the proceeds into the public treasury, the bill gave a direct sanction to the principle of slavery, and cast a stain upon the national character. In order that some other plan might be devised, consistent at once with the honor of the Union and the safety of the slaveholding states, it was moved to recommit the bill to a committee of seventeen-one from each state. This motion, made by Bedinger, of Kentucky, was supported not only by Sloan, Bidwell, Findley, and Smilie, but also by Quincy, of Boston, and Clay, of Philadelphia, who seemed at length to have taken the alarm at the extent to which they had been playing into the hands of the slaveholders. It was urged, on the other side, that the bill, as it stood, was satisfactory to nearly or quite all the members from the Southern States, who alone were interested in the matter, and that to recommit a bill at this stage was very unusual. The motion to recommit was carried, however, seventy-six to forty-nine. With the yeas voted all the Northern members present, except three Federalists from New Hampshire, and as many more from New York. But their desertion was more than made good by three votes from Maryland, two from Virginia, two from Kentucky, and one from each of the states of Delaware, North Carolina, and Ten nessee. persons CHAPTER XIX. The committee of seventeen proposed that all imported in violation of the act should be sent to such states as had prohibited slavery, or had enacted laws for 1807. its gradual abolition, and should there be bound out as apprentices for a limited time, at the expiration of which they were to become free. Jan. 20. When this report came up for discussion, a very ex- Feb. 9 traordinary degree of excitement was exhibited by several of the Southern members. Early declared that the people of the South would resist this provision with their lives; and he moved, by way of compromise, as he said, to substitute for it a delivery of the imported negroes to the state authorities, to be disposed of as they might see fit the same, in substance, with Bidwell's suggestion. This Smilie pronounced a new scene indeed! Was the House to be frightened by threats of civil war? Early denied having made any such threats. He merely meant to intimate that troops would be necessary to enforce the act. The whole day, thus commenced, was consumed in a very violent debate, of which no detailed report has been preserved. While this subject had been under discussion in the House, the Senate had passed and sent down a bill having the same object in view. The House bill, with the report of the committee, having been laid upon the table, the Senate bill was taken up. That bill provided that Feb 10 neither the importer, nor any purchaser under him, should "have or gain" any title to the persons illegally imported, leaving them to be disposed of as the states might direct. Williams, of South Carolina, moved to substitute the word "retain" instead of the words "have or gain." The motion to strike out prevailed, but, instead of "retain," the word "hold" was substituted; whereupon Williams declared, in a very vehement speech, that he considered this word "hold" as leading to the destruc CHAPTER tion and massacre of all the whites in the Southern XIX. States; and he attacked Bidwell with great violence as 1807. the author of this calamity. The punishment of death was also stricken from the bill, and, thus amended, it was reported to the House. These amendments being concurred in, the bill was passed, one hundred and thirteen to five, and was sent back to the Senate. But, notwithstanding this concession to the South, the trouble was not yet over. Among other precautions against the transportation coastwise of imported slaves, the Senate bill had forbidden the transport, for the pur pose of sale, of any negro whatever on board any vessel under forty tons burden. A proviso had been added by the House, excluding from the operation of this section the coastwise transportation of slaves accompanied by the owner or his agent. The refusal of the Senate to concur in this amendment called out John Randolph, who hitherto had hardly spoken. "If the bill passed without this proviso, the Southern people," he said, "would set the act at defiance. He would set the first example. He would go with his own slaves, and be at the expense of asserting the rights of the slaveholders. The next step would be to prohibit the slaveholder himself going from one state to another. The bill without the amendment was worse than the exaction of shipmoney. The proprietor of sacred and chartered rights was prevented from the constitutional use of his property." Other speeches were made in the same high strain, and finally a committee of conference was appointed, by which an amended proviso was agreed to, allowing the transportation of negroes, not imported contrary to the provisions of the act, in vessels of any sort on any river or inland bay within the jurisdiction of the United States. This, however, was far from satisfying the more violent |