constitutional, and moral.

The political argument, reduced to its lowest terms, ran thus: those
wishing to free the Negroes illegally imported declared that to enslave
them would be to perpetrate the very evil which the law was designed to
stop. "By the same law," they said, "we condemn the man-stealer and
become the receivers of his stolen goods. We punish the criminal, and
then step into his place, and complete the crime."[5] They said that the
objection to free Negroes was no valid excuse; for if the Southern
people really feared this class, they would consent to the imposing of
such penalties on illicit traffic as would stop the importation of a
single slave.[6] Moreover, "forfeiture" and sale of the Negroes implied
a property right in them which did not exist.[7] Waiving this technical
point, and allowing them to be "forfeited" to the government, then the
government should either immediately set them free, or, at the most,
indenture them for a term of years; otherwise, the law would be an
encouragement to violators. "It certainly will be," said they, "if the
importer can find means to evade the penalty of the act; for there he
has all the advantage of a market enhanced by our ineffectual attempt to
prohibit."[8] They claimed that even the indenturing of the ignorant
barbarian for life was better than slavery; and Sloan declared that the
Northern States would receive the freed Negroes willingly rather than
have them enslaved.[9]

The argument of those who insisted that the Negroes should be sold was
tersely put by Macon: "In adopting our measures on this subject, we must
pass such a law as can be executed."[10] Early expanded this: "It is a
principle in legislation, as correct as any which has ever prevailed,
that to give effect to laws you must not make them repugnant to the
passions and wishes of the people among whom they are to operate. How
then, in this instance, stands the fact? Do not gentlemen from every
quarter of the Union prove, on the discussion of every question that has
ever arisen in the House, having the most remote bearing on the giving
freedom to the Africans in the bosom of our country, that it has excited
the deepest sensibility in the breasts of those where slavery exists?
And why is this so? It is, because those who, from experience, know the
extent of the evil, believe that the most formidable aspect in which it
can present itself, is by making these people free among them. Yes, sir,
though