dependent nations in
consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to
_enslave us_; that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation
of those, rights to which God and nature had entitled us, not in
_particular_, but in _common_ with all the rest of mankind; that we
had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of
freedom, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the
_rights_ which he had thus imparted to his creatures; that now, when
we had scarcely risen from our knees, from supplicating his mercy and
protection in forming our government over a free people, a government
formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its
preservation,--in that government to have a provision not only
putting it out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade,
even encouraging that most infamous traffic, by giving the States the
power and influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and
wantonly sported with the rights of their fellow-creatures, ought to
be considered as a solemn mockery of, and an insult to, that God whose
protection we had then implored, and could not fail to hold us up in
detestation, and render us contemptible to every true friend of
liberty in the world. It was said, it ought to be considered that
national crimes can only be, and frequently are, punished in this
world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave
trade, and thus giving it a national sanction, and encouragement,
ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and
vengeance of him who is equally Lord of all, and who views with equal
eye the poor African slave and his American master!

It was urged that by this system, we were giving the general
government full and absolute power to regulate commerce, under which
general power it would have a right to restrain, or totally prohibit,
the slave trade: it must, therefore, appear to the world absurd and
disgraceful to the last degree, that we should except from the
exercise of that power, the only branch of commerce which is
unjustifiable in its nature, and contrary to the rights of mankind.
That, on the contrary, we ought rather to prohibit expressly in our
Constitution, the further importation of slaves, and to authorize the
general government, from time to time, to make such regulations as
should be thought most advantageous for the gradual abolition of
slavery, and the emancipation of the slav