A Brief Treatise Upon Constitutional and Party Questions (Electronic book text)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Prohibition Of The African Slave Trade, 88PEOHIBITION OF THE AFRICAN SLAYE TEADE. textit{Art. L, textit{Section 9, textit{Clause 1. "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars for each person." The section of the Constitution authorizing the prohibition of the African slave trade after the year 1808, had its origin in a disagreement between the delegates in the convention which framed the Constitution. One party, particularly the delegates of South Carolina and Georgia, demanded the instant and unconditional prohibition of the African slave trade on moral and religious grounds, while the delegates from the extreme South insisted that;t was a legitimate commerce, involving no other considerations than those of a sound public policy, which eachState ought to be permitted to determine for itself. Each party adhered to its position resolutely, with the distinct avowal that they would maintain it at all hazards, until both became convinced that the convention must break up without forming a Constitution, and the Confederacy divide into two or more fractions, thus blotting out all the glories of the Revolution, and destroying its benefits, unless a compromise could be effected on the common ground of such mutual concessions as were necessary to preserve the Union, and independence of the States. Such a compromise was effected, and incorporated into the Constitution, by which textit{it was understood that the slave trade should continue a legitimate commerce in those States which chose to sanction it, until the year 1808, from and after which time Congress might, and textit{would...