HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 11, 1790
MR. SMITH.—If I understood it right on its first reading the petition prays that we should take measures for the abolition of the slave trade. This is desiring an unconstitutional act, because the Constitution secures that trade to the States, independent of congressional restrictions, for a term of twenty-one years. If, therefore, it prays for a violation of constitutional rights, it ought to he rejected as an attempt upon the virtue and patriotism of the House.
MR. SHERMAN observed that the petitioners from New York stated that they had applied to the legislature of that State to prohibit certain practices which they conceived to be improper, and which tended to injure the well-being of the community; that the legislature had considered the application, but had applied no remedy because they supposed that power was exclusively vested in the general Government under the Constitution of the United States; it would, therefore, be proper to commit that petition, in order to ascertain what are the powers of the general Government in the case.
(from Great Debates in American History, by United States Congress, Great Britain Parliament, Marion Mills Miller, published 1913, Current Literature Publishing Company)
