ied example set
by the gentlemen who had preceded him on that side of the question, he
slurred the Quakers. "His constituents wanted no lessons in religion
and morality, and least of all from such teachers."

Madison, Gerry, Boudinot, and Page favored commitment. Upon the
question to commit, the yeas and nays being demanded, the reference
was made by a vote of forty-three to eleven. Of the latter, six were
from Georgia and South Carolina, two from Virginia, two from Maryland,
and one from New York. A special committee was announced, to whom the
memorial was referred, consisting of one member from each of the
following States: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. At the end of a month, the
committee made the following report to Congress:--

"1st. That the general government was expressly restrained,
until the year 1808, from prohibiting the importation of any
persons whom any of the existing states might till that time
think proper to admit. 2d. That, by a fair construction of
the constitution, congress was equally restrained from
interfering to emancipate slaves within the states, such
slaves having been born there, or having been imported
within the period mentioned. 3d. That congress had no power
to interfere in the internal regulation of particular states
relative to the instruction of slaves in the principles of
morality and religion, to their comfortable clothing,
accommodation, and subsistence, to the regulation of
marriages or the violation of marital rights, to the
separation of children and parents, to a comfortable
provision in cases of age or infirmity, or to the seizure,
transportation, and sale of free negroes; but entertained
the fullest confidence in the wisdom and humanity of the
state legislature that, from time to time, they would revise
their laws, and promote these and all other measures tending
to the happiness of the slaves. The fourth asserted that
congress had authority to levy a tax of ten dollars, should
they see fit to exact it, upon every person imported under
the special permission of any of the states. The fifth
declared the authority of congress to interdict or to
regulate the African slave-trade, so far as it might be
carried on by citizens of the United States for the supply
of foreign countries,