France,
as well as from Africa, might, on their arrival here, claim their
passengers as slaves. Did the constitution, in this clause, by simply
using the word "importation," instead of immigration, intend to throw
upon the national government--at the hazard of making it a party to the
illegal enslavement of human beings--the responsibility of
investigating and deciding upon the legality and credibility of all the
evidence that might be offered by the piratical masters of slave ships,
to prove their valid purchase of, and their right of property in their
human cargoes, according to the slave laws of the countries from which
they should bring them? Such must have been the intention of the
constitution, if it intended, (as it must, if it intended any thing of
this kind,) that the fact of "importation" under the commercial
regulations of congress, should be thereafter a sufficient authority for
holding in slavery the persons imported.

But perhaps it will be said that it was not the intention of the
constitution, that congress should take any responsibility at all in the
matter; that it was merely intended that whoever came into the country
with a cargo of men, whom he called his slaves, should be permitted to
bring them in on his own responsibility, and sell them as slaves for
life to our people; and that congress were prohibited only from
interfering, or asking any questions as to how he obtained them, or how
they became his slaves. Suppose such were the intention of the
constitution--what follows? Why, that the national government, the only
government that was to be known to foreign nations, the only government
that was to be permitted to regulate our commerce, or make treaties with
foreign nations, the government on whom alone was to rest the
responsibility of war with foreign nations, was bound to permit, (until
1808,) all masters, both of our own ships and of the ships of other
nations, to turn pirates, and make slaves of their passengers, whether
Englishmen, Frenchmen, or any other civilized people, (for the
constitution makes no distinction of "persons" on this point,) bring
them into this country, sell them as slaves for life to our people, and
thus make our country a rendezvous and harbor for pirates, involve us
inevitably in war with every civilized nation in the world, cause
ourselves to be outlawed as a people, and bring certain and swift
destruction upon the whole nation; and yet this government, that had the