Would they acquiesce? Though these laws were proper for the Jews, they are not so, of course, for us. They contemplated no other than temporal rewards. If I recollect right, there is no part of the Jewish dispensation which holds out the idea of a future state.

Another argument is urged. It is said that if a severe punishment is inflicted, the other provisions of the bill will be rendered unnecessary. In answer to this argument, I would refer gentlemen to the very example of the Jews. Though their criminal laws were numerous and excessively severe, yet we find that they were the most debased creatures on earth. Look to the countries of Europe, and especially to Great Britain, for the effect of severe criminal laws. It is found that severity of punishment multiplies rather than diminishes the number of crimes. Look into ancient history and read the sanguinary laws of Draco. Why did they exist no longer? Because they were so severe that they could not be endured. I am of the opinion, that in this case, imprisonment will be a more effectual punishment than death, and am therefore in favor of striking

out.

Mr. OLIN.-I would ask gentlemen if they would not as soon be willing to be brought to the halter as to be made slaves for life? If they would, and I trust they would, man-stealing is a crime as bad as murder, and ought to be punished as heavy. I was at first against the punishment of death; but I own that gentlemen have convinced me by their arguments, and I am now the other way. I am persuaded that gentlemen will think there is nothing dishonorable in this changing one's mind. Mr. EARLY.-I formerly thought that the decision on this question was not a matter of any great importance; but as it seems now to be considered as a prelude to an attack on subsequent parts of the bill, it appears to me now important that the subject be well understood and rightly decided.

What are you told? You are now told that a forfeiture is unnecessary, and that to inflict the punishment of death is the only way to stop this trade. I consider this as an old attack revived in a new form. I hope the House will pardon me for undertaking to assign reasons for the bill as reported.

We are told by one gentleman (Mr. ELY) that in this case there is ample time during the voyage for the trader to reflect on the enormity of his crime and the severity of the punishment, and that, in consequence of such reflections, he will be persuaded to abandon his enterprise. We are told that those who violate this law, will not do it from a sudden gust of passion, or momentary desire of gain, as is commonly the fact in case of murder, robbery, and theft; that it must be done deliberately, and after ample reflection on the guilt of the transaction. The gentlemen's premises are not universally correct. I doubt if even they are generally true. They are true only in those cases where a man's innate sense of right and wrong tells him that he is violating a moral law. This is not the fact with regard to the importer.

H. OF R.

But admit the gentleman's premises to be correct, and his reasoning sound, his ideas have no practical application to this subject. Let me ask how they apply to the indirect trade, the trade from the Spanish territories? Here is the danger. It is from this quarter that you are to apprehend the introduction of slaves. Here the importer is beyond your jurisdiction; he is even beyond your reach. You cannot touch him. I should like to know how the fear of punishment will operate on him. I should like to know how the fear of death will operate on a man who is bound with his slaves to a country where he knows the punishment will not be enforced. He will be bound to a country where the people see slaves every hour of their lives; where there is no such abhorrence of the crime of importing them, and where no man dare inform. My word for it; I pledge it to-day, and I wish it may be recollected; no man in the Southern section of the Union will dare inform. It would cost him more than his life is worth. No man would risk it when it led to the punishment of death, when it was not for an offence which nature revolts at. They do not consider it as a crime.

We have been asked what punishment can be considered too severe for so atrocious a crime. Without answering the question in the abstract, it will be sufficient to answer it by a practical view of the subject. How do people consider the transaction? That is the question. Do they consider it such an outrageous crime? They do not. Gentlemen may legislate to suit their feelings, and not to suit the habits of the people for whom they legislate. Their reason must tell them that this is the fact.

Suppose a law had been made to punish with death all those concerned in the insurrection of 1793, could the law have been executed? Will the gentleman from Pennsylvania answer on this subject? It could not have been executed because so many people were concerned. So in this case. All the people in the Southern States are concerned in slavery. It is not then considered as criminal.

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 tha

H. of R.

is the fact.

Mr. ELY thought, in opposition to the gentleman from Georgia, (Mr. EARLY,) that the punishment of death would operate to prevent the indirect trade. As to the question whether it is criminal in the Southern people to continue to hold their slaves, he believed it was not generally thought a crime; but whether it was a crime or not, made no difference as to the question before the House. The object is now to prevent the trade.

Georgia, by her constitution, recently adopted by the people of that State, or at least by a law, has prohibited the slave trade. Now, then, is it conceivable that they are disposed to continue the trade? There is no connexion between continuing the trade and continuing to hold their present slaves. All the Southern States, one only excepted, have expressed their abhorrence of this trade, and passed laws against it. On the gentleman's (Mr. EARLY's) reasoning, you cannot prevent the trade by any punishment whatever. If the people consider it proper, they will, on his reason, never inform. I trust, however, that if we make the punishment death, few will venture to run the risk of an examination and trial.

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.

Gentlemen always appear on this subject to blend the question of immorality with that of political expediency. But it is a fact well known

The laws of Moses have on this occasion been cited. But if you look further, you will find them almost as bloody as those of Draco. Besides, if that good old book is brought in, many things will be found on the other side. Slavery appears to be tolerated there.

Mr. STANTON.-In 1784, Rhode Island passed a law declaring that all blacks, from thereafter, should be as free as the whites. But, since, some people of that State 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 so as to prevent this trade in future; but I cannot believe that a man ought to be hung for only stealing a negro. Those who buy, are as bad as those who import them, and deserve hanging quite as much.

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 point now to be settled is, shall we declare the being concerned in the importation of slaves a capital offence, or shall we leave it subject only to fine and imprisonment? Those gentlemen who are in favor of the latter punishments, object to the former as being disproportioned to the offence. The gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. LLOYD.) in attempting to lower the nature of the crime, has urged an argument in extenuation of the slave trade entirely new. He says, the negroes are of such a turbulent and vindictive character at home, that the chiefs of their nations are obliged to transport them for their own safety. [Here Mr. LLOYD interrupted Mr. D., and said, that the gentleman certainly misunderstood him; that he had not intended to justify the slave trade at all; on the contrary, he condemned it entirely. had only mentioned the facts, that the Africans were slaves at home, and that they were of such a vindictive character that it was not safe to have them in the country.]

He

Mr. DWIGHT. I understood the gentleman before precisely as I do now. I did not understand him to approve of the slave trade. My argu

sey, near where I live, when I was a boy growing up, because in Pennsylvania there was a duty of $10 a head. I could detain the House in relating the pitiful stories I have often myself heard from those poor slaves who were about my own age, as we used to be together, how they were kidnapped and stolen away, in the most piteous manner, and what a paradise their home in Africa was to their situation here.

The question was loudly called for, and was about to be put, when Mr. ELMER rose. He hoped the House would not be led away by the declamation of the gentleman. Mr. E. spoke further at some length.

Mr. BARKER agreed with gentlemen as to the heinousness of the crime, but differed with many from the same quarter of the Union (Eastern States) as to the punishment. He thought the punishment of death both unjust and inexpedient; unjust, because not necessary for the safety of society; and inexpedient, because not the most effectual punishment. He thought it would be better to enslave the importer. Let him be put to labor, and know a little by experience what the evils of slavery are.

Mr. VARNUM thought the Southern States were in imminent danger from slavery. He recollected that he had heard a Southern gentleman, formerly a member of that House, compare that part of the Union to a bundle of combustibles, which only wanted a little fire to kindle a blaze that would consume them.

JANUARY, 1807.

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 Sandford, 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 Findley, John Fowler, Edwin Gray, Andrew Gregg, Silas Halsey, Seth Hastings, David Hough, John Lambert, Duncan MacFarland, 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 sec

Mr. FINDLEY gave his opinion that the law could be executed as well in Pennsylvania as in any quarter of the Union. The United States laws, in some cases, inflict the punishment of death, when it is not done by the Pennsylvania laws, and yet there is no difficulty in executing those penal laws of the United States. Mr. F. was against striking out.

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 car. ried-yeas 63, nays 53, as follows:

YEAS-Willis Alston, jun., John Archer, Joseph Barker, Burwell Basset, 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

FRIDAY, January 2, 1807.

The SPEAKER laid before the House a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, enclosing the transcript of decisions, and report on rejected claims, made by the commissioners appointed to examine the claims to land in the district of Detroit, in conformity with the several acts making provision for the disposal of the public lands in the Territories of Indiana and Michigan; which were read, and referred to the Committee on the Public Lands.

On motion of Mr. CLOPTON, the petition of sundry Britsh merchants and others, subjects of His Britannic Majesty, presented to this House on the 21st of December, 1804, was referred to Mr. CLOPTON, Mr. NATHAN WILLIAMS, Mr. HELMS, Mr. BISHOP, and Mr. FOWLER; to examine and report their opinion thereupon to the House.

Mr. MUMFORD presented to the House a petition of David Gelston, Collector of the Customs of the district of New York, which was received and read, praying to be reimbursed in the amount of damages and costs sustained by him in attempting to detect, by judicial prosecutions, frauds committed in obtaining from his office, contrary to the laws of the United States, registers for vessels owned wholly, or in part, by the subjects of