rnal traffic--in sacking and burning the
hamlets of Africa--in slaughtering multitudes of the inoffensive
natives on the soil, kidnapping and enslaving a still greater
proportion, crowding them to suffocation in the holds of the slave
ships, populating the Atlantic with their dead bodies, and subjecting
the wretched survivors to all the horrors of unmitigated bondage! This
awful covenant was strictly fulfilled; and though, since its
termination, Congress has declared the foreign slave traffic to be
piracy, yet all Christendom knows that the American flag, instead of
being the terror of the African slavers, has given them the most ample
protection.

The manner in which the 9th Section was agreed to, by the national
convention that formed the constitution, is thus frankly avowed by the
Hon. Luther Martin,[8] who was a prominent member of that body:

[Footnote 8: Speech before the Legislature of Maryland in 1787.]

"The Eastern States, notwithstanding their aversion of slavery, (!)
were _very willing to indulge the Southern States_ at least with a
temporary liberty to prosecute the slave trade, provided the Southern
States would, in their turn, _gratify_ them by laying no restriction
on navigation acts; and, after a very little time, the committee, by a
great majority, agreed on a report, _by which the general government
was to be prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves_ for a
limited time; and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts
was to be omitted."

Behold the iniquity of this agreement! how sordid were the motives
which led to it! what a profligate disregard of justice and humanity,
on the part of those who had solemnly declared the inalienable right
of all men to be free and equal, to be a self-evident truth!

It is due to the national convention to say, that this section was not
adopted "without considerable opposition." Alluding to it, Mr. Martin
observes--

"It was said we had just assumed a place among the independent 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 has 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