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CHAPTER plan might be devised, consistent at once with the honor of the Union and the safety of the slaveholding states, it 1807. 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 Tennessee.

Jan. 20.

Feb. 9.

The committee of seventeen proposed that all persons imported in violation of the act should be sent to such states as had prohibited slavery, or had enacted laws for 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.

When this report came up for discussion, a very extraordinary degree of excitement was exhibited by sev eral 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

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fit the same, in substance, with Bidwell's suggestion. CHAPTER This Smilie pronounced a new scene indeed! Was the House to be frightened by threats of civil war? Early 1807. 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 substi tute 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 destruction and massacre of all the whites in the Southern States; and he attacked Bidwell with great violence as 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 purpose of sale, of any negro whatever on board any vessel

CHAPTER under forty tons burden, to which a proviso had been XIX. added by the House, excluding from the operation of

1807. this section the coastwise transportation of slaves when

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 Southern members. Randolph still insisted that the provisions of the bill, so far as related to the coastwise transportation of slaves, touched upon the right of private property, and he expressed a fear lest at a future period this claim of power might be made the pretext for a general emancipation. He would rather lose all the bills of the session, every bill passed since the establishment of the government, than submit to such a provision. It went to blow the Constitution into ruins. If disunion should ever take place, the line of disseverance would not be between the East and the West, lately the topic of

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so much alarm, but between the slaveholding and the CHAPTER non-slaveholding states. Early and Williams joined in these furious demonstrations; but the report of the com- 1807. mittee of conference was agreed to, sixty-three to fortynine.

The act, as finally passed, imposed a fine of $20,000 upon all persons concerned in fitting out any vessel for the slave trade, with the forfeiture of the vessel; likewise a fine of $5000, with forfeiture also of the vessel, for taking on board any negro, mulatto, or person of color in any foreign country, with the purpose of selling such person within the jurisdiction of the United States as a slave. For actually transporting from any foreign country and selling as a slave, or to be held to service or labor within the United States, any such person as above described, the penalty was imprisonment for not less than five nor more than ten years, with a fine not exceeding $10,000 nor less than $1000. The purchaser, if cognizant of the facts, was also liable to a fine of $800 for every person so purchased. Neither the importer nor the purchaser were to hold any right or title to such person, or to his or her service or labor; but all such persons were to remain subject to any regulations for their disposal, not contrary to the provisions of this act, which might be made by the respective states and territories. Coasting vessels transporting slaves from one state to another were to have the name, age, sex, and description of such slaves, with the names of the owners, inserted in their manifests, and certified also by the officers of the port of departure; which manifests, before landing any of the slaves, were to be exhibited and sworn to before the officer of the port of arrival, under pain of forfeiture of the vessel, and a fine of $1000 for each slave as to whom these formalities might be omitted. No vessel of

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CHAPTER less than forty tons burden was to take any slaves on board except for transportation on the inland bays and 1807. rivers of the United States; and any vessel found hovering on the coast with slaves on board, in contravention of this act, was liable to seizure and condemnation; for which purpose the president was authorized to employ the ships of the navy, half the proceeds of the captured vessels and their cargoes to go to the captors. The masters of vessels so seized were liable to a fine of $10,000, and imprisonment for not less than two nor more than four years. The negroes found on board were to be delivered to such persons as the states might respectively appoint to receive them, or, in default of such appointment, to the overseers of the poor of the place to which they might be brought; and if, under state regulations, they should be "sold or disposed of," the penalties of this act upon the seller and purchaser were not to attach in such cases. Though coming very near it, the provisions of this warmly-contested enactment did yet, vastly to the chagrin of the ultra slaveholders, avoid, as the Constitution of the United States had done, any acknowledgment of the existence, by natural law, of property in man, or any national participation in the sale of human beings.

Randolph's objections to the act, of which the restraint upon the transportation of slaves by water was made the pretense, did not cease with the passage of the bill. He Feb. 27. denounced it the day after in a most vehement speech, in which he declared that whatever might be thought of alien, and sedition, and excise laws, they were nothing in comparison to this. It laid the axe at the root of all property in the Southern States. If Congress could abridge, alter, or modify the right of property in slaves, they could go a step further, and emancipate them.

He