these
efforts to put a stop to this most iniquitous commerce. The effect of
the treaty is, therefore, to render it obligatory upon us by a
convention, to do what we have long done voluntarily; to place our
municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress." Should
the effect of the treaty be to place our municipal laws, in some
measure, beyond the reach of Congress, it is sufficient to say that all
treaties containing obligations necessarily do this. All treaties of
commerce do it; and, indeed, there is hardly a treaty existing, to which
the United States are party, which does not, to some extent, or in some
way, restrain the legislative power. Treaties could not be made without
producing this effect.

But your remark would seem to imply that, in your judgment, there is
something derogatory to the character and dignity of the country in thus
stipulating with a foreign power for a concurrent effort to execute the
laws of each. It would be a sufficient refutation of this objection to
say, that, if in this arrangement there be any thing derogatory to the
character and dignity of one party, it must be equally derogatory, since
the stipulation is perfectly mutual, to the character and dignity of
both. But it is derogatory to the character and dignity of neither. The
objection seems to proceed still upon the implied ground that the
abolition of the slave-trade is more a duty of Great Britain, or a more
leading object with her, than it is or should be with us; as if, in this
great effort of civilized nations to do away the most cruel traffic that
ever scourged or disgraced the world, we had not as high and honorable,
as just and merciful, a part to act, as any other nation upon the face
of the earth. Let it be for ever remembered, that in this great work of
humanity and justice the United States took the lead themselves. This
government declared the slave-trade unlawful; and in this declaration it
has been followed by the great powers of Europe. This government
declared the slave-trade to be piracy; and in this, too, its example has
been followed by other states. This government, this young government,
springing up in this new world within half a century, founded on the
broadest principles of civil liberty, and sustained by the moral sense
and intelligence of the people, has gone in advance of all other nations
in summoning the civilized world to a common effort to put down and
destroy a nefarious traffic reproachf