HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 12, 1790
MR. W. SMITH, of South Carolina, insisted that it was not in the power of the House to grant the prayer of the petition, which went to the total abolishment of the slave trade, and it was therefore unnecessary to commit it. If gentlemen can assign no good reason for the measure, they will not support it when they are told that it will create jealousies and alarm in the Southern States; for I can assure them that there is no point on which they are more jealous and suspicious than on a business with which they think the Government has nothing to do.
When we entered into this confederacy we did it from political, not from moral, motives, and I do not think my constituents want to learn morals from the petitioners; I do not believe they want improvement in their moral system; if they do, they can get it at home. The gentleman from Georgia has justly stated the jealousy of the Southern States. On entering into this Government they apprehended that the other States, not knowing the necessity the citizens of the Southern States were under to hold this species of property, would, from motives of humanity and benevolence, be led to vote for a general emancipation; and, had they not seen that the Constitution provided against the effect of such a disposition, I may be bold to say they never would have adopted it.
We look upon this measure as an attack upon the palladium of the property of our country; it is therefore our duty to oppose it by every means in our power. Gentlemen should consider that when we entered into a political connection with the other States this property was there; it was acquired under a former government, conformably to the laws and Constitution, therefore anything that will tend to deprive them of that property must be an ex post facto law, and, as such, is forbidden by our political compact.
I said the States would never have entered into the confederation unless their property had been guaranteed to them, for such is the state of agriculture in that country that without slaves it must be abandoned. Why will these people, then, make use of arguments to induce the slave to turn his hand against his master? We labor under difficulties enough from the ravages of the late war. A gentleman can hardly come from that country with a servant or two, either to this place [New York] or Philadelphia, but there are persons trying to seduce his servants to leave him; and, when they have done this, the poor wretches are obliged to rob their master in order to obtain a subsistence; all those, therefore, who are concerned in this seduction are accessories to the robbery.
The reproach which they [the abolitionists] cast upon the owners of negro property is the want of humanity. I believe the proprietors have as much humanity as persons in any part of the continent, and are as conspicuous for their good morals as their neighbors. The memorial of the Quakers relates to a matter in which they are no more interested than any other sect, and can only be considered as a piece of advice, which it is not customary to refer to a committee; but if it is supposed to pray for what they think a moral purpose, is that sufficient to induce us to commit it? What may appear a moral virtue in their eyes may not be so in reality. I have heard of a sect of Shaking Quakers, who, I presume, suppose their tenets of a moral tendency. I am informed one of them forbids to intermarry. Now, if these people were to petition Congress to pass a law prohibiting matrimony would gentlemen agree to refer such a petition ? I think if they would reject one of that nature as improper they ought also to reject this.
(from Great Debates in American History, by United States Congress, Great Britain Parliament, Marion Mills Miller, published 1913, Current Literature Publishing Company)