escriptive phrase "migration or importation of persons"; the
term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of
acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view
_imported_ persons as a species of emigrants, whilst others might
apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the
country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might
have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as
malefactors.

But whatever may have been intended by the term "migration" or
the term "persons", it is most certain, that they referred,
exclusively, to a migration or importation from other countries
into the U. States; and not to a removal, voluntary or
involuntary, of Slaves or freemen, from one to another part of
the U. States. Nothing appears or is recollected that warrants
this latter intention. Nothing in the proceedings of the State
conventions indicate such a construction there. Had such been in
the construction it is easy to imagine the figure it would have
made in many of the states, among the objections to the
constitution, and among the numerous amendments to it proposed by
the state conventions, not one of which amendments refers to the
clause in question.... It falls within the scope of your enquiry,
to state the fact, that there was a proposition in the
convention, to discriminate between the old and new States, by an
article in the Constitution declaring that the aggregate number
of representatives from the states thereafter to be admitted,
should never exceed that of the states originally adopting the
Constitution. The proposition happily was rejected. The effect of
such a descrimination, is sufficiently evident.[577]

Speaking about the meaning of migration, Walter Lowrie of Pennsylvania
said in the United States Senate:

In the Constitution it is provided that "the migration or
importation of such persons as any of the States now existing
shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax," etc. In this debate
it seems generally to be admitted, by gentlemen on the opposite
side, that these two words are not synonomous; but what their
meaning is, they are not so well agreed. One gentlemen tells us,
it was intended to prevent slaves from being brought in by land;