Do not these facts prove a sincere purpose and earnest endeavor, on the part of Americans, both in their Colonial and in their National capacities, to do all in their power to put a check to the evil, and stop the further progress of a wrong, the commencement of which it was not in their power to prevent?
But the question is often asked, why does not the Government of the United States abolish slavery as well as forbid the slave-trade? To this it is to be replied, that the American Government has no power to do so: the Congress of the United States has no power whatever over slavery Within the limits of the different States. It should be understood that the United States is a Confederacy, composed at present of thirty-three different States, each of which is sovereign and independent as to all its internal concerns. To understand this — it is to be remembered that before the War of Independence there were thirteen distinct Colonies, entirely independent of, and unconnected
were all ready for the victims, which, no doubt, were found and transported from Africa into slavery in that very ship. Our English friends, when they taunt us Americans on the subject, should remember they forced slavery upon us, when we were their colonies. George III, in 1774, disallowed an act of the legislature of Virginia, prohibiting the slave-trade, because he said it would be very injurious to the commerce of his Majesty's subjects. The reformation is rather too recent to justify recrimination on the child." — Visit to Europe in 1851.
So late as 1807, Dr. Chalmers (as already mentioned) witnessed the departure of a slave-ship from Liverpool to Africa — when "the ladies," he says, "waved their handkerchiefs from the shore, to sanctify what was infamous, and deck the splendid villainy of the trade." — See Hannas' Life of Chalmers, vol. i., chap. 5.
So slow, in England, was the growth of right public sentiment on this subject! Long before this the Americans had abolished the slave-trade, so far as their own ships were concerned.
