1823, which sought to render this denunciation of that offence universal, cannot, therefore, be misunderstood.

It was not misconceived by the House of Representatives, when ratified with almost unprecedented unanimity.

An unfounded suggestion has been heard, that the abortive attempt to amend the resolution, indicated that it was not considered as involving the right of search. The opposite conclusion is the more rational, if not, indeed, irresistible; that having, by the denomination of the crime, provided for the detection, trial, and punishment of the criminal, an amendment, designing to add what was already included in the main proposition, would be superfluous, if not absurd. But no such amendment was rejected. The House of Representatives, very near the close of the session of 1823, desirous of economizing time, threatened to be consumed by a protracted debate, entertained the previous question, while an amendment, the only one offered to the resolution, was depending. The effect of the previous question was to bring on an immediate decision upon the resolution itself, which was adopted by a vote of 131 members to 9.

It is alike untrue, that the resolution was regarded with indifference. The House had been prepared to pass it without debate, by a series of measures, having their origin in 1819, and steadily advancing to maturity.

Before the resolution did pass, two motions had been submitted, to lay it on the table, and to postpone it to a future day. The former was resisted by an ascertained majority of 104 to 25; the latter, without a division.

Is the House now ready to retrace its steps?

The committee believe not. Neither the people of America, nor their representatives, will sully the glory they have earned by their early labour, and steady perseverance, in sustaining, by their Federal and State Governments, the cause of humanity at home and abroad.

The calamity inflicted upon them by the introduction of slavery, in a form, and to an extent forbidding its hasty alleviation by intemperate zeal, is imputable to a foreign cause, for which the past is responsible to the present age. They will not deny to themselves, and to mankind, a generous co-operation in the only efficient measure of retributive justice, to an insulted and afflicted continent, and to an injured and degraded race.

In the independence of Spanish and Portuguese America, the com

mittee behold a speedy termination of the few remaining obstacles to the extension of the policy of the resolution of May, 1823.

Brazil cannot intend to resist the voice of the residue of the continent of America; and Portugal, deprived of her great market for slaves, will no longer have a motive to resist the common feelings of Europe. And yet, while from the Rio de la Plata to the Amazon, and through the American archipelago, the importation of slaves covertly continues, if it be not openly countenanced, the impolicy is obvious, of denying to the American shore the protective vigilance of the only adequate check upon this traffic.

Your committee forbear to enter upon an investigation of the particular provisions of a depending negotiation, nor do they consider the message referred to them as inviting any such inquiry.

They will not regard a negotiation to be dissolved, which has approached so near consummation, nor a convention as absolutely void, which has been executed by one party, and which the United States, having first tendered, should be the last to reject.

(A.)

Report of the Committee to whom was referred, at the commencement of the present session of Congress, so much of the President's Message as relates to the Slave Trade, accompanied with a Bill to incorporate the American Society for colonizing the free people of colour of the United States.

MAY 8, 1820.-Read twice, and, with the bill, committed to the Committee of the whole House on the bill from the Senate, to continue in force an act to protect the commerce of the United States, and punish the crime of piracy, &c. &c.

The Committee on the Slave Trade, to whom was referred the memo

rial of the President and Board of Managers of the American Society for colonizing the free people of colour of the United States, have, according to order, had under consideration the several subjects therein embraced, and report :

That the American Society was instituted in the City of Washington, on the 28th of December, 1816, for the benevolent purpose of afford

ing to the free people of colour of the United States the means of establishing one or more independent colonies on the western coast of Africa. After ascertaining, by a mission to that continent, and other preliminary inquiries, that their object is practicable, the Society requests of the Congress of the United States a charter of incorporation, and such other legislative aid as their enterprise may be thought to merit and require.

The memorialists anticipate from its success consequences the most beneficial to the free people of colour themselves, to the several States in which they at present reside, and to that continent which is to be the seat of their future establishment. Passing by the foundation of these anticipations, which will be seen in the annual reports of the Society and their former memorials, the attention of the committee has been particularly drawn to the connexion which the memorialists have traced between their purpose and the policy of the recent act of Congress, for the more effectual abolition of the African slave trade.

Experience has demonstrated that this detestable traffic can be no where so successfully assailed, as on the coast upon which it originates. Not only does the collection and embarkation of its unnatural cargoes consume more time than their subsequent distribution and sale in the market for which they are destined, but the African coast, frequented by the slave ships, is indented with so few commodious or accessible harbours, that, notwithstanding its great extent, it could be guarded by the vigilance of a few active cruisers. If to these be added colonies of civilized blacks, planted in commanding situations along that coast, no slave ship could possibly escape detection; and thus the security, as well as the enhanced profit which now cherishes this illicit trade, would be effectually counteracted. Such colonies, by diffusing a taste for legitimate commerce among the native tribes of that fruitful continent, would gradually destroy among them, also, the only incentive of a traffic which has hitherto rendered all African labour insecure, and spread desolation over one of the most beautiful regions of the globe. The colonies, and the armed vessels employed in watching the African coast, while they co-operated alike in the cause of humanity, would afford to each other mutual succour.

There is a single consideration, however, added to the preceding view of this subject, which appears to your committee, of itself, conclusive of the tendency of the views of the memorialists to further the operation of the act of the 3d of March, 1819. That act not only revokes the authority antecedently given to the several state and territo

rial governments, to dispose, as they pleased, of those African captives, who might be liberated by the tribunals of the United States, but authorizes and requires the President to restore them to their native country. The unavoidable consequence of this just and humane provision, is, to require some preparation to be made for their temporary succour, on being relanded upon the African shore. And no preparation can prove so congenial to its own object, or so economical, as regards the government charged with this charitable duty, as that which would be found in a colony of the free people of colour of the United States. Sustained by the recommendations of numerous societies in every part of the United States, and the approving voice of the legislative assemblies of several States, without inquiring into any other tendency of the object of the memorialists, your committee do not hesitate to pronounce it deserving of the countenance and support of the General Government. The extent to which these shall be carried, is a question not so easily determined.

The memorialists do not ask the Government to assume the jurisdiction of the territory, or to become, in any degree whatever, responsible for the future safety or tranquillity of the contemplated colony. They have prudently thought, that its external peace and security would be most effectually guarded, by an appeal in its behalf to the philanthropy of the civilized world; and to that sentiment of retributive justice, with which all Christendom is at present animated towards a much injured continent.

Of the constitutional power of the General Government to grant the limited aid contemplated by the accompanying bill and resolutions, your committee presume, there can exist no shadow of doubt; and they leave it to a period of greater national prosperity to determine how far the authority of Congress, the resources of the National Government, and the welfare and happiness of the United States, will warrant or require its extension.

Your committee are solemnly enjoined by the peculiar object of their trust, and invited by the suggestion of the memorialists, to inquire into the defects of the existing laws against the African slave trade. So long as it is in the power of the United States to provide additional restraints upon this odious traffic, they cannot be withheld, consistently with justice and the honour of the nation.

Congress have heretofore marked, with decided reprobation, the authors and abettors of this iniquitous commerce, in every form which it assumes; from the inception of its unrighteous purpose in America,

through all the subsequent stages of its progress, to its final consummation; the outward voyage; the cruel seizure and forcible abduction of the unfortunate African from his native home, and the fraudulent transfer of the property thus acquired. It may, however, be questioned, if a proper discrimination of their relative guilt has entered into the measure of punishment annexed to these criminal acts.

Your committee cannot perceive wherein the offence of kidnapping an unoffending inhabitant of a foreign country; of chaining him down for a series of days, weeks, and months, amidst the dying and the dead, to the pestilential hold of a slave ship; of consigning him, if he chance to live out the voyage, to perpetual slavery in a remote and unknown land, differs in malignity from piracy, or why a milder punishment should follow the one, than the other crime.

On the other hand, the purchase of the unfortunate African, after his enlargement from the floating dungeon which wafts him to the foreign market, however criminal in itself, and yet more in its tendency to encourage this abominable traffic, yields in atrocity to the violent seizure of his person, his sudden and unprepared separation from his family, his kindred, his friends, and his country, followed by all the horrors of the middle passage. Are there not united in this offence all that is most iniquitous in theft, most daring in robbery, and cruel in murder? Its consequences to the victim, if he survives; to the country which receives him, and to that from which he is torn, are alike disastrous. If the internal wars of Africa, and their desolating effect, may be imputed to the slave trade, and that the greater part of them must now, cannot be questioned, this crime, considered in its remote, as well as its proximate consequences, is the very darkest in the whole catalogue of human iniquities; and its authors should be regarded as hostes humani generis.

In proposing to the House of Representatives to make such part of this offence as occurs upon the ocean piracy, your committee are animated, not by the desire of manifesting to the world the horror with which it is viewed by the American people; but by the confident expectation of promoting, by this example, its more certain punishment by all nations, and its absolute and final extinction.

May it not be believed, that when the whole civilized world shall have denounced the slave trade as piracy, it will become as unfrequent as any other species of that offence against the law of nations? Is it unreasonable to suppose, that negotiation will, with greater facility, introduce into that law such a provision as is here proposed, when it shall have been already incorporated into the separate code of each State?