was only about the proposed _ad valorem_
duty of five per centum on most other importations. "It is to be
hoped," he added, "that by expressing a national disapprobation of this
trade we may destroy it, and save ourselves from reproaches, and our
posterity the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with
slaves." "If there is any one point," he continued, "in which it is
clearly the policy of this nation, so far as we constitutionally can, to
vary the practice obtaining under some of the state governments, it is
this.... It is as much the interest of Georgia and South Carolina as of
any in the Union. Every addition they receive to their number of slaves
tends to weaken and render them less capable of self-defense.... It is a
necessary duty of the general government to protect every part of the
empire against danger, as well internal as external. Everything,
therefore, which tends to increase this danger, though it may be a local
affair, yet, if it involves national expense or safety, becomes of
concern to every part of the Union, and is a proper subject for the
consideration of those charged with the general administration of the
government." No Northern man, except Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts,
supported this measure; and none from the Southern States, except three
of the Virginia members, with Madison leading. As the foreign slave
trade was protected in the Constitution for twenty years by a bargain
between the two southernmost States and New England, so now the same
influence staved off the imposition of the tax which was a part of the
consideration to be given for that constitutional protection of the
trade. It is not a creditable fact; but it is, nevertheless, a fact and
a representative one in the history of the United States. And it is to
Madison's great honor that he had neither part nor lot in it.

After six weeks of earnest debate, an amicable and satisfactory
agreement was made to impose a moderate duty upon pretty much everything
imported, except slaves from Africa. It was literally a tariff for
revenue; but it was a settlement that settled nothing definitely, except
that the provision of the Constitution for a tax of ten dollars on
imported slaves should be a dead letter. Thenceforth the policy of free
trade was established, so far as African slaves were concerned, till the
traffic was supposed to cease by constitutional limitation and Act of
Congress in 1808.[12]

The determination to protect the