alf and that Congress
were willing to hear what could be urged in favor of discouraging the
practice of importing his fellow-wretches, he would trust in their
justice and humanity, and wait the decision patiently. He presumed
that these unfortunate people would reason in the same way; and he,
therefore, conceived the most likely way to prevent danger, was to
commit the petition. He lived in a State which had the misfortune of
having in her bosom a great number of slaves, he held many of them
himself, and was as much interested in the business, he believed, as
any gentleman in South Carolina or Georgia, yet, if he was determined
to hold them in eternal bondage, he should feel no uneasiness or alarm
on account of the present measure, because he should rely upon the
virtue of Congress, that they would not exercise any unconstitutional
authority.

Mr. MADISON (of Va.) The debate has taken a serious turn, and it will
be owing to this alone if an alarm is created; for had the memorial
been treated in the usual way, it would have been considered as a
matter of course, and a report might have been made, so as to have
given general satisfaction.

If there was the slightest tendency by the commitment to break in upon
the Constitution, he would object to it; but he did not see upon what
ground such an event was to be apprehended. The petition prayed, in
general terms, for the interference of Congress, so far as they were
constitutionally authorized; but even if its prayer was, in some
degree, unconstitutional, it might be committed, as was the case on
Mr. Churchman's petition, one part of which was supposed to apply for
an unconstitutional interference by the general government.

He admitted that Congress was restricted by the Constitution from
taking measures to abolish the slave trade; yet there were a variety
of ways by which they could countenance the abolition, and they might
make some regulations respecting the introduction of them into the new
States, to be formed out of the Western Territory, different from what
they could in the old settled States. He thought the object well
worthy of consideration.

Mr. GERRY (of Mass.) thought the interference of Congress fully
compatible with the Constitution, and could not help lamenting the
miseries to which the natives of Africa were exposed by this inhuman
commerce; and said that he never contemplated the subject, without
reflecting what his own feelings would be, in case hims