ensation? Will Virginia set all her negroes free? Will
they give up the money they cost them, and to whom? When this practice
comes to be tried there, the sound of liberty will lose those charms
which make it grateful to the ravished ear.

But our slaves are not in a worse situation than they were on the
coast of Africa; it is not uncommon there for the parents to sell
their children in peace; and in war the whole are taken and made
slaves together. In these cases it is only a change of one slavery for
another; and are they not better here, where they have a master bound
by the ties of interest and law to provide for their support and
comfort in old age, or infirmity, in which, if they were free, they
would sink under the pressure of woe for want of assistance.

He would say nothing of the partiality of such a tax, it was admitted
by the avowed friends of the measure; Georgia in particular would be
oppressed. On this account it would be the most odious tax Congress
could impose.

Mr. Schureman (of N.J.) hoped the gentleman would withdraw his motion,
because the present was not the time or place for introducing the
business; he thought it had better be brought forward in the House, as
a distinct proposition. If the gentleman persisted in having the
question determined, he would move the previous question if he was
supported.

Mr. Madison, (of Va.) I cannot concur with gentlemen who think the
present an improper time or place to enter into a discussion of the
proposed motion; if it is taken up in a separate view, we shall do the
same thing at a greater expense of time. But the gentlemen say that it
is improper to connect the two objects, because they do not come
within the title of the bill. But this objection may be obviated by
accommodating the title to the contents; there may be some
inconsistency in combining the ideas which gentlemen have expressed,
that is, considering the human race as a species of property; but the
evil does not arise from adopting the clause now proposed, it is from
the importation to which it relates. Our object in enumerating persons
on paper with merchandise, is to prevent the practice of actually
treating them as such, by having them, in future, forming part of the
cargoes of goods, wares, and merchandise to be imported into the
United States. The motion is calculated to avoid the very evil
intimated by the gentleman. It has been said that this tax will be
partial and oppressive; but sup