r a very little time, the committee, by a
great majority, agreed on a report, _by which the general government
was to be prohibited from preventing the importation of slaves_ for a
limited time; and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts
was to be omitted."

Behold the iniquity of this agreement! how sordid were the motives
which led to it! what a profligate disregard of justice and humanity,
on the part of those who had solemnly declared the inalienable right
of all men to be free and equal, to be a self-evident truth!

It is due to the national convention to say, that this section was not
adopted "without considerable opposition." Alluding to it, Mr. Martin
observes--

"It was said we had just assumed a place among the independent nations
in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to
_enslave us_; that this opposition was grounded upon the preservation
of those rights to which God and nature has entitled us, not in
_particular_, but in _common with all the rest of mankind_; that we
had appealed to the Supreme Being for his assistance, as the God of
freedom, who could not but approve our efforts to preserve the rights
which he had thus imparted to his creatures; that now, when we had
scarcely risen from our knees, from supplicating his mercy and
protection in forming our government over a free people, a government
formed pretendedly on the principles of liberty, and for its
preservation,--in that government to have a provision, not only of
putting out of its power to restrain and prevent the slave trade, even
encouraging that most infamous traffic, by giving the States the power
and influence in the Union in proportion as they cruelly and wantonly
sported with the rights of their fellow-creatures, ought to be
considered as a solemn mockery of, and insult to, that God whose
protection we had thus implored, and could not fail to hold us up in
detestation, and render us contemptible to every true friend of
liberty in the world. It was said that national crimes can only be,
and frequently are, punished in this world by _national punishments_,
and that the continuance of the slave trade, and thus giving it a
national character, sanction, and encouragement, ought to be
considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of
him who is equally the Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the
poor _African slave_ and his _American master!_ [9]

[Footnote 9: How terribly and