THE SLAVE-TRADE IN NEW YORK.

The National Convention which in 1787 framed the Federal Constitution,
despite its firmness and patriotism, was, like all public bodies,
evidently not entirely devoid of a spirit of compromise. A majority of
its members were desirous of freeing the institutions of the young
nation from the burden of slavery, and yet they consented to engraft the
following provision upon the body of our American fundamental law:--

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress
prior to the year 1808."

Congress was awake, however, even during the administration of
Washington, to its duty in the matter, and an act was passed declaring
the slave-trade to be piracy. Twenty years afterward the principal
European sovereigns united in the same declaration, and so the execrable
commerce was hurled beyond the pale of international law. There is now
no probability that it will ever regain its rank 'on change.' But its
illegitimation does not seem to have greatly circumscribed its activity.
In the face of apparent danger, it has continued to flourish, and there
has been hardly more risk to a _pirate_ with a living cargo from Gaboon,
than would be encountered by an ordinary merchantman from pirates in the
Gulf. Indeed, there were many who believed and feared, prior to the
breaking out of the present rebellion, that the next compromise between
the North and South would be the repeal of all laws prohibiting the
African slave-trade. So rapidly yet so insidiously was the South
obtaining an entire control in the councils of the nation.

It was notorious that a large proportion of the vessels which were
engaged in the infamous traffic were owned and fitted out by Northern
capitalists. The General Government did not exert itself in good faith
to carry out either its treaty stipulations nor the legislation of
Congress in regard to the matter. If a vessel was captured, her owners
were permitted to bond her, and thus continue her in the trade; and if
any man was convicted of this form of piracy, the executive always
interposed between him and the penalty of his crime. The laws providing
for the seizure of vessels engaged in the traffic were so constructed as
to render the duty unremunerative; and marshals now find their fees for
such services to be actually less than their necessary expenses. No one
who bears this fact