color of title to which they might pretend. The amendment was
defeated by a vote of 36 to 63.

When the bill with amendments was reported to the House by the committee of
the whole, on December 31, there was vigorous debate upon the question of
substituting imprisonment of from five to ten years in place of the death
penalty. Mr. Talmadge of Connecticut supported the provision of death with
a biblical citation; and Mr. Smilie said he considered it the very marrow
of the bill. Mr. Lloyd of Maryland thought the death penalty would be
out of proportion to the crime, and considered the extract from Exodus
inapplicable since few of the negroes imported had been stolen in Africa.
But Mr. Olin of Vermont announced that the man-stealing argument had
persuaded him in favor of the extreme penalty. Early now became furious,
and in his fury, frank. In a preceding speech he had pronounced slavery
"an evil regretted by every man in the country."[28] He now said: "A large
majority of the people in the Southern states do not ... believe it immoral
to hold human flesh in bondage. Many deprecate slavery as an evil; as a
political evil; but not as a crime. Reflecting men apprehend, at some
future day, evils, incalculable evils, from it; but it is a fact that
few, very few, consider it as a crime. It is best to be candid on this
subject.... I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the
Southern states do not consider slavery as an evil. Let the gentleman go
and travel in that quarter of the Union; let him go from neighborhood to
neighborhood, and he will find that this is the fact. Some gentlemen appear
to legislate for the sake of appearances.... I should like to know what
honor you will derive from a law that will be broken every day of your
lives."[29] Mr. Stanton said with an air of deprecation on behalf of his
state of Rhode Island: "I wish the law made so strong as to prevent this
trade in future; but I cannot believe that a man ought to be hung for only
stealing a negro. Those who buy them are as bad as those who import them,
and deserve hanging quite as much." The yeas and nays recorded at the end
of the exhausting day showed 63 in favor and 53 against the substitution of
imprisonment. The North was divided, 29 to 37, with the nays coming mostly
from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut; the South, although South
Carolina as well as Kentucky was evenly divided, cast 34 yeas to 16 nays.
Virginia and Maryland, which m