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THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.
the guilty participators in the crime were adjudged worthy of death. It was enacted:
"If any citizen of the United States, being of the crew, or ship's company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged in the slave trade, or any person whatever, being of the crew or ship's company of any ship or vessel owned in the whole, or navigated for, or in behalf of, any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall land from any such ship or vessel, and on any foreign shore seize any negro or mulatto, not held to service or labor 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 decoy, or forcibly bring, or carry, or shall receive such negro or mulatto on board any such ship or vessel, with intent as aforesaid, 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."
At that period, and as far back as the time when the United States Constitution was adopted, the hostility to slavery was national, and the pro-slavery feeling was local, and limited to a comparatively small portion of the people. We might fill volumes with the testimony of the great and good men of that day, which contributed to the formation of the public opinion that called for the enactment of the laws to which we have referred.
In addition to the opinions of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Jay, and Hamilton, already quoted, let me call the reader's attention to the sen-
