The First Congress, 1790: The Slavery Debate, cont'd (part 7) Mr. Gerry

PETITIONS AGAINST SLAVERY–Continued
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 12, 1790
MR. GERRY 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. He never contemplated the subject without reflecting what his own feelings would be, in case himself, his children, or friends were placed in the same deplorable circumstances. He then adverted to the flagrant acts of cruelty which are committed in carrying on that traffic; and asked whether it can be supposed that Congress has no power to prevent such abuses? Congress can, agreeably to the Constitution, lay a duty of ten dollars on imported slaves; they may do this immediately. He made a calculation of the value of the slaves in the Southern States, and supposed they may be worth ten millions of dollars. Congress have a right, if they see proper, to make a proposal to the Southern States to purchase the whole of them, and their resources in the Western Territory might furnish them with the means. He did not intend to suggest a measure of this kind; he only instanced these particulars to show that Congress certainly has a right to intermeddle in the business.

(from Great Debates in American History, by United States Congress, Great Britain Parliament, Marion Mills Miller, published 1913, Current Literature Publishing Company)

The First Congress: 1790, Enter Benjamin Franklin

On February 12 the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, presented a memorial, not on the abolition merely of the slave trade but of slavery in general. This declared:

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding freedom, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race, and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellowmen.

Mr. Hartley then called up the memorial presented the day before, from the annual meeting of Friends at Philadelphia, for a second reading; whereupon the same was read a second time and moved to be committed.

In the debate which ensued the leading speakers for commitment were: John Page [Va.], James Madison [Va.], Thomas Scott [Pa.], and Elbridge Gerry [Mass.]; those against commitment were Thomas T. Tucker [S. C.], Aedamus Burke [S. C.], William L. Smith [S. C.], James Jackson [Ga.], and Abraham Baldwin [Ga.]. ...