of the
crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned wholly or in part, or
navigated for or in behalf of, any citizen or citizens of the United
States, shall forcibly confine or detain, or aid and abet in forcibly
confining or detaining, on board such ship or vessel any Negro or
Mulatto not held to service by the laws of either of the States or
Territories of the United States, with intent to make such Negro or
Mulatto a slave, or shall on board any such ship or vessel offer or
attempt to sell as a slave any Negro or Mulatto not held to service as
aforesaid, or shall on the high seas or anywhere on tide water transfer
or deliver over to any other ship or vessel any Negro or Mulatto not
held to service as aforesaid, with intent to make such Negro or mulatto
a slave, or shall land or deliver on shore from on board any such ship
or vessel any such Negro or mulatto, with intent to make sale of, or
having previously sold such Negro or Mulatto as a slave, such citizen or
person shall be adjudged a pirate, and on conviction thereof before the
circuit court of the United States for the district wherein he may be
brought or found shall suffer death.

And on the 28th February, 1823, the House of Representatives, by a
majority of 131 to 9, passed a resolution to the following effect:

_Resolved_, That the President of the United States be requested to
enter upon and prosecute from time to time such negotiations with the
several maritime powers of Europe and America as he may deem expedient
for the effectual abolition of the African slave trade and its ultimate
denunciation as piracy under the law of nations, by the consent of the
civilized world.

By the act of Congress above referred to, whereby the most effectual
means that could be devised were adopted for the extirpation of the
slave trade, the wish of the United States was explicitly declared, that
all nations might concur in a similar policy. It could only be by such
concurrence that the great object could be accomplished, and it was by
negotiation and treaty alone that such concurrence could be obtained,
commencing with one power and extending it to others. The course,
therefore, which the Executive, who had concurred in the act, had to
pursue was distinctly marked out for it. Had there, however, been any
doubt respecting it, the resolution of the House of Representatives,
the branch which might with strict propriety exp