The gentleman (Mr. Smilie) has said that, in the Southern States, slavery is felt and acknowledged to be a great evil, and that therefore we will execute a severe law to prevent an increase of this evil. Permit me to tell the gentleman of a small distinction in this case. A large majority of the people in the Southern States do not consider slavery as a crime. They do not believe it immoral to hold human flesh in bondage. Many deprecate slavery as an evil; as a political evil; but not as a crime. Reflecting men apprehend, at some future day, evils, incalculable evils, from it; but it is a fact that few, very few, consider it as a crime.
It is best to be candid on this subject. If they considered the holding of men in slavery as a crime, they would necessarily accuse themselves, a thing which human nature revolts at. I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the Southern States do not consider slavery as even an evil. Let the gentleman go and travel in that quarter of the Union; let him go from neighborhood to neighborhood, and he will find that this is the fact.
Mr. Holland.—In the Southern States slavery is generally considered as a political evil, and in that point of view nearly all are disposed to stop the trade for the future. But have capital punishments been usually inflicted on offences merely political? I believe not. Fine and imprisonment are the common punishments in such cases. The people of the South do not generally consider slavery as a moral offence. The importer might say to the informer that he had done no worse, nor even so bad as he. It is true that I have these slaves from Africa; but I have transported them from one master to another. I am not guilty of holding human beings in bondage. But you are. You have hundreds on your plantations in this miserable condition. By your purchases you tempt traders to increase the evil. You and your ancestors have introduced this calamity into the country, and you are continuing, you are augmenting it. The importer might hold the same language to the jury and the judge who try him. He might tell them that they were even more guilty than he. Under such circumstances the law inflicting death would not be executed. But if you punish by fine and imprisonment only, you will find the people of the South willing and ready to execute the law.
Mr. Dwight.—We are all happily agreed in the great object of the bill—the prevention of the importation of slaves into the United States. Unfortunately, we are not so well agreed in the means to effect this object. It is not, however, at all strange that men should differ about the best mode to accomplish so important a purpose; and especially men in the circumstances in which we are placed. Those of us who come from the Northern and Eastern States, where slavery exists not at all, or but in a slight degree, would naturally view this subject in a very different light from gentlemen who represent the Southern States, where slavery always has existed, and that to a great extent. As great a degree of unanimity as is possible is of much importance, both for the purpose of effectually preventing this inhuman traffic, and for the honor and reputation of our country.
The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Early) has informed us repeatedly that a law making this a capital offence cannot be executed in the Southern States; that the importation of slaves has so long been familiar to them, that a great majority of the people consider it not as an aggravated crime, and a large portion of them as no crime at all; that if we make such an offence capital; if we make the consequence of importing a cargo of slaves to be the loss of life, no man will ever be prosecuted for it, because no man will dare inform. All the gentlemen, sir, from the Southern States, who have spoken on this subject, have told us that they earnestly wish effectually to prevent the slave trade in future. I am disposed to credit them fully. Indeed, I cannot conceive that they should not sincerely and fervently wish to prevent a traffic, which, if persisted in, must in all human probability, first or last, bring upon them and their families the most tremendous calamities. If, then, they view the subject in this light, if they are sincere in making these declarations, there is not only no danger that the law will not be executed, but they will unite to a man to execute the law; the whole community will inform; a regard to their own lives, and the lives of their posterity, will drive them to it. And if, sir, in the rigid execution of this statute, its penalties fall upon men from the Eastern States, who are profligate enough to engage in this inhuman trade, I most heartily concur with my colleague in saying, let the law have its full force, let it fall with all its force upon the offender; let him die.
The question being taken by yeas and nays, on striking out so much of the first section as inflicts the punishment of death on owners and masters of vessels employed in the slave trade, it was carried—yeas 63, nays 53, as follows:
Yeas.—Willis Alston, jun., John Archer, Joseph Barker, Burwell Bassett, Silas Betton, John Boyle, William A. Burwell, William Butler, George W. Campbell, Martin Chittenden, John Claiborne, Joseph Clay, George Clinton, jun., John Clopton, Orchard Cook, Ezra Darby, John Dawson, William Dickson, Peter Early, James Elliot, Caleb Ellis, Ebenezer Elmer, James Fisk, Isaiah L. Green, William Helms, James Holland, David Holmes, John G. Jackson, Walter Jones, Thomas Kenan, Nehemiah Knight, Edward Lloyd, Patrick Magruder, Robert Marion, William McCreery, David Meriwether, Nicholas R. Moore, Thomas Moore, Jeremiah Morrow, Gurdon S. Mumford, Thomas Newton, jun., John Randolph, John Rhea of Tennessee, Jacob Richards, Peter Sailly, Thomas Sanford, Martin G. Schuneman, Dennis Smelt, John Smith, Samuel Smith, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, Joseph Stanton, Samuel Taggart, Samuel Tenney, Uri Tracy, Abram Trigg, Daniel C. Verplanck, Robert Whitehill, Eliphalet Wickes, Nathan Williams, Joseph Winston, and Thomas Wynns.
Nays.—Evan Alexander, Isaac Anderson, David Bard, George M. Bedinger, Barnabas Bidwell, John Blake, jun., Thomas Blount, James M. Broom, Robert Brown, Levi Casey, John Chandler, Matthew Clay, Frederick Conrad, Leonard Covington, Richard Cutts, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, junior, Theodore Dwight, Elias Earle, William Ely, John W. Eppes, William Findlay, John Fowler, Edwin Gray, Andrew Gregg, Silas Halsey, Seth Hastings, David Hough, John Lambert, Duncan McFarland, Josiah Masters, John Morrow, Jonathan O. Mosely, Jeremiah Nelson, Gideon Olin, John Porter, John Pugh, John Rea of Pennsylvania, John Russell, Thomas Sammons, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, John Smilie, Benjamin Tallmadge, David Thomas, Thomas W. Thompson, Philip Van Cortlandt, Joseph B. Varnum, Peleg Wadsworth, John Whitehill, David R. Williams, Marmaduke Williams, and Alexander Wilson.
The question on inserting, in lieu of what was stricken out, a clause prescribing imprisonment for not more than ten, nor less than five years, was carried without a division.
The amendments to the second and third sections were read and agreed to, when, after several unsuccessful attempts to adjourn, the further consideration of the subject was postponed till Friday—ayes 71—to which day the House adjourned.