pon as potent
weapons of defense and assault, were unknown in the earlier Congresses.

Mr. Madison and some other members from the South, particularly those
from Virginia, opposed the majority of their colleagues, who were
unwilling that these memorials should be referred to a committee. "The
true policy of the Southern members," Madison wrote to a friend, "was to
have let the affair proceed with as little noise as possible, and to
have made use of the occasion to obtain, along with an assertion of the
powers of Congress, a recognition of the restraints imposed by the
Constitution." This in effect was done in the end, but not till near two
months had passed, within which time the more violent of the Southern
members had ample opportunity to free their minds and exhaust the
subject. The more these people talked the worse it was, of course, for
their cause. Had Madison's moderate advice been accepted then, and had
that example been followed for the next sixty or seventy years, it is
quite likely that the colored race would still be in bondage in at least
one half of the States. But there was never a more notable example of
manifest destiny than the gradual but certain progress of the opposition
to slavery; for there never was a system, any attempt to defend which
showed how utterly indefensible such a system must needs be. Every
argument advanced in its favor was so manifestly absurd, or so shocking
to the ordinary sense of mankind, that the more it was discussed the
more widespread and earnest became the opposition. Had the slaveholders
been wise, they would never have opened their mouths upon the subject.
But, like the man possessed of the devil, they never ceased to cry, "Let
me alone!" And the more they cried, the more there were who understood
where that cry came from.

In one respect Mr. Madison declared that the memorial of the Friends
demanded attention. If the American flag was used to protect foreigners
in carrying on the slave trade in other countries, that was a proper
subject for the consideration of Congress. "If this is the case," he
said, "is there any person of humanity that would not wish to prevent
them?"[13] But he recognized the limitations of the Constitution in
relation to the importation of slaves into the United States, and the
want of any authority in the letter of the Constitution, or of any wish
on the part of Congress, to interfere with slavery in the States. On
these points he would have a d