traffic was guilty of murder."[34] The
law of God punished the crime with death, and any one would rather be
hanged than be enslaved.[35] It was a peculiarly deliberate crime, in
which the offender did not act in sudden passion, but had ample time for
reflection.[36] Then, too, crimes of much less magnitude are punished
with death. Shall we punish the stealer of $50 with death, and the
man-stealer with imprisonment only?[37] Piracy, forgery, and fraudulent
sinking of vessels are punishable with death, "yet these are crimes only
against property; whereas the importation of slaves, a crime committed
against the liberty of man, and inferior only to murder or treason, is
accounted nothing but a misdemeanor."[38] Here, indeed, lies the remedy
for the evil of freeing illegally imported Negroes,--in making the
penalty so severe that none will be brought in; if the South is sincere,
"they will unite to a man to execute the law."[39] To free such Negroes
is dangerous; to enslave them, wrong; to return them, impracticable; to
indenture them, difficult,--therefore, by a death penalty, keep them
from being imported.[40] Here the East had a chance to throw back the
taunts of the South, by urging the South to unite with them in hanging
the New England slave-traders, assuring the South that "so far from
charging their Southern brethren with cruelty or severity in hanging
them, they would acknowledge the favor with gratitude."[41] Finally, if
the Southerners would refuse to execute so severe a law because they did
not consider the offence great, they would probably refuse to execute
any law at all for the same reason.[42]

The opposition answered that the death penalty was more than
proportionate to the crime, and therefore "immoral."[43] "I cannot
believe," said Stanton of Rhode Island, "that a man ought to be hung for
only stealing a negro."[44] It was argued that the trade was after all
but a "transfer from one master to another;"[45] that slavery was worse
than the slave-trade, and the South did not consider slavery a crime:
how could it then punish the trade so severely and not reflect on the
institution?[46] Severity, it was said, was also inexpedient: severity
often increases crime; if the punishment is too great, people will
sympathize with offenders and will not inform against them. Said Mr.
Mosely: "When the penalty is excessive or disproportioned to the
offence, it will naturally create a repugnance to the law, and render
i