HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 11, 1790
MR. MADISON.—I apprehend gentlemen need not be alarmed at any measure it is likely Congress will take, because they will recollect that the Constitution secures to the individual States the right of admitting, if they think proper, the importation of slaves into their own territory for eighteen years yet unexpired; subject, however, to a tax, if Congress is disposed to impose it, of not more than ten dollars on each person. The petition, if I mistake not, speaks of artifices used by self-interested persons to carry on this trade. If anything is within the Federal authority to restrain such violation of the rights of nations and of mankind, as is supposed to be practiced in some parts of the United States, it will certainly tend to the interest and honor of the community to attempt a remedy, and is a proper subject for our discussion. It may be that foreigners take the advantage of the liberty afforded them by the American trade to employ our shipping in the slave trade between Africa and the West Indies, when they are restrained from employing their own by restrictive laws of their nation. –If this is the case, is there any person of humanity that would not wish to prevent them? Another consideration why we should commit the petition is that we may give no ground of alarm by a serious opposition, as if we were about to take measures that were unconstitutional. (from Great Debates in American History, by United States Congress, Great Britain Parliament, Marion Mills Miller, published 1913, Current Literature Publishing Company)
