es imported implied that they were property; the
latter from the fear of losing two States. Edmund Randolph was in favor
of the motion, hoping to find some middle ground upon which they could
unite. The motion prevailed, and the subject was referred to a committee
of one from each State. The committee retained the prohibition of duties
on exports; struck out the restriction on the enactment of navigation
laws; and left the importation of slaves unrestricted until the year
1800; permitting Congress, however, to impose a duty upon the
importation.

The debate upon this report of the "grand committee" is condensed, by
Hildreth, into the two following paragraphs:

"Williamson declared himself, both in opinion and practice, against
slavery; but he thought it more in favor of humanity, from a view of all
circumstances, to let in South Carolina and Georgia on these terms, than
to exclude them from the Union. Sherman again objected to the tax, as
acknowledging men to be property. Gorham replied that the duty ought to
be considered, not as implying that men are property, but as a
discouragement to their importation. Sherman said the duty was too small
to bear that character. Madison thought it 'wrong to admit, in the
Constitution, the idea that there could be property in man'; and the
phraseology of one clause was subsequently altered to avoid any such
implication. Gouverneur Morris objected that the clause gave Congress
power to tax freemen imported; to which George Mason replied that such a
power was necessary to prevent the importation of convicts. A motion to
extend the time from 1800 to 1808, made by Pinckney, and seconded by
Gorham, was carried against New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
Virginia; Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire voting this time
with Georgia and South Carolina. That part of the report which struck
out the restriction on the enactment of navigation acts was opposed by
Charles Pinckney in a set speech, in which he enumerated five distinct
commercial interests: the fisheries and West India trade, belonging to
New England; the interest of New York in a free trade; wheat and flour,
the staples of New Jersey and Pennsylvania; tobacco, the staple of
Maryland and Virginia and partly of North Carolina; rice and indigo, the
staples of South Carolina and Georgia. The same ground was taken by
Williamson and Mason, and very warmly by Randolph, who declared that an
unlimited power in Congress to enact