Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress Page: 75
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APPENDIX— To Gales & Seaton's He winter.
75
j8th Congress, {
2d Session. s
On the Slave Trade.
[H. of R.
The report and resolution were referred to a commit-
tee of the whole, and never further considered.
After a delay till the 20th of the succeeding1 Februa-
ry, a resolution was submitted to the House, which was
evidently a part of the same system of measures, for the
suppression of the slave trade, which had been begun
by the act of the 3d of March, 1819, and followed up by
the connected series of reports and resolutions which
the committee have reviewed, and which breathe the
same spirit.
This resolution, in proposing to make the slave trade
piracy, by the consent of mankind, sought to supplant,
by a measure of greater rigor, the qualified international
exchange of the right of search for the apprehension of
the African slave dealer, and the British system of mix-
ed tribunals created for his trial and punishment ; a sys-
tem cf which experience and the recent extension of
the traffic, which it sought to limit, had disclosed the en-
tire inefficacy.
The United States had already established the true
denomination and grade of this offence, by a municipal
law. The resolution contemplated, as did the report
which accompanied and expounded that law, the exten-
sion of its principle, by negotiation, to the code of all
nations.
It denounced the authors of this stupendous iniquity,
as the enemies of the human race, and armed all men
with authority to detect, pursue, arrest, and punish
them.
Such a measure, to succeed to its fullest extent, must
have a beginning somewhere. Commencing with the
consent of any two states, to regard it as binding on
themselves only, it would, by the gradual accession ot
others, enlarge the sphere of its operation, until it em-
braced, as the resolution contemplated, all the maritime
powers of the civilized world.
While it involved of necessity the visit and search of
piratical vessels, as belligerant rights against the common
enemies of man, it avoided all complexity, difficulty,
and delay, in the seizure, condemnation, and punish-
ment of the pirate himself. It made no distinction in
favor of those pirates who prey upon the property,
against those who seize, torture, and kid, or consign to
interminable and hereditary slavery, the persons ol their
enemies.
Your committee are at a loss for the foundation ot any
such discrimination. It is believed, that the most an-
cient piracies consisted in converting innocent captives
into slaves; and those were not attended with the de-
struction of one third of their victims, by loathsome con-
finement and mortal disease.
While the modern, therefore, accords with the ancient
denomination of this crime, its punishment is not dis-
proportionate to its guilt. It has robbery and murder
for its mere accessories, and moistens one continent
with blood and tears, in order to curse another, by slow
consuming ruin, physical and moral.
One high consolation attends upon the new remedy
for this frightful and prolific evil. If once successful, it
will forever remain so, until, being unexerted, its very
application will be found in history alone.
Can it be doubted, that, if ever legitimate commerce
shall supplant the source of this evil in Africa, and a re-
liance on other supplies of labor its use elsewhere, a
revival of the slave trade will be as impracticable, as a
reversion to barbarism —that, after the lapse or a cen-
turv from its extinction, except where the consequences
of the crime shall survive, the stories of the African slave
trade will become as improbable among the unlearne ,
as the expeditions of the heroes of Homer .
The principle of the law of 1820, making the slave
trade a statutory piracy", and of the resolution of the
House of Representatives of May, 182j, which sought
to render this denunciation of that offence uillY?Isal,
annot, therefore( be misunderstood.
It was not misconceived by the House of Repre-
sentatives, when ratified with almost unprecedented
unanimity.
An unfounded suggestion has been heard, that the
abortive attempt to amend the resolution, indicated that
it was not considered as involving the right of search.
The opposite conclusion is the more rational, if. not, in-
deed, irresistible ; that, having, by the denomination of
the crime, provided for the detection, trial, and punish-
ment of the criminal, an amendment, designing to add
what was already included in the main proposition,
would be superfluous, if not absurd, llut no such amend-
ment -was rejected. The House of Representatives,
very near the constitutional close of the session of 1823,
desirous of economizing time, threatened to be consum-
ed by a protracted debate, entertained the previous ques-
tion, while an amendment, the only one offered to the
resolution, was depending. The effect of the previous
question was to bring on an immediate decision upon
the resolution itself, which was adopted by a vote of 131
members to nine.
It isalike untrue, that the resolution was regarded
with indifference. The House had been prepared to
pass it without debate, by a series of' measures, hiving
their origin in 1819, and steadily advancing to maturity.
Before the resolution did pass, motions had been sub •
mitted to lay it on the table, and to post pone it to a fu-
ture day. The former was resisted by an ascertained
majority of 104 to 25 ; the latter without a division.
Is the House now ready to retrace its steps
The Committee believe not. Neither the people of
America, nor their representatives, will sully the glory
they have earned by their early labor, and steady perse-
verance, in sustaining by their federal ancj state govern-
ments, the cause of humanity at home and abroad.
The calamity inflicted upon them, by the introduction
of slavery, in a form, and to an extent forbidding its has-
ty alleviation by intemperate zeal, is imputable to a for-
eign cause, for which the past is responsible to the pre-
sent age. They will not deny to themselves, and to
mankind, a generous co-operation in the only efficient
measure of retributive justice, to an insulted and afflict-
ed continent, and to an injuredand degraded race.
In the independence of Spanish and Port uguese Amer-
ica, the Committee behold a speedy termination of the
few remaining obstacles to the extention of the policy
of the resolution of May, 1823.
Brazil cannot intend to resist the voice of the residue
of the continent of America: and Portugal, deprived of
her great market for slaves, will no longer have a mo-
tive to resist the common feelings of Europe. And yet,
while, from the Iiio de la Plata, to the Amazon, and
through the American Archipelago, the importation of
slaves covertly continues, if it be not openly counte-
nanced, the impolicy is obvious, of denying to the Amer-
ican shore the protective vigilance of the only adequate
check upon this traffic.
Your committee forbear to enter upon an investiga-
tion of the particular provisions of a depending negotia-
tion, nor do they consider the message referred to them
as inviting any such inquiry.
They will not regard a negotiation to be dissolved,
which has approached so near consummation, nor a con-
vention, as absolutely void, which has been executed by
one party, and which the United States, having first ten-
dered, should be the last to reject.
~ REPORL
Of the Committee on Roads and Canals, upon the
' subject of Internal Improvements, accompanied
by a bill " concerning Internal Improvements.
H. of R. Feb. 6, 1825.
The Committee on Roads and Canals beg leave, there-
with to report a bill " concerning
Internal Improve-
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Gales, Joseph, 1761-1841. Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Eighteenth Congress, book, 1825; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30752/m1/451/?rotate=90: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.