The committee of seventeen proposed that all persons imported in violation of the ad should he sent to Mich stales as had prohibited slavery, or had enacted laws for its gradual abolition, and should there be hound out as apprentices for a limited time, at the expiration of which they were to heroine free.
When this report came rip for discussion, a very extraordinary degree of excitement was exhibited by several of the southern members. Early declared that the people of the south would resist this provision with their lives; and lie moved, by way of compromise, as he said, to substitute for it a delivery of the imported negroes to the slate authorities, to be disposed of as they might see fit — the same, in substance, with Bidwell's suggestion. This Smilie pronounced a new scene indeed! Was the house to be frightened by threats of civil war? Early denied having made any such threats. He merely meant to intimate that troops would be necessary to enforce the act. The whole day, thus commenced, was consumed in a very violent debate, of which no detailed report has been preserved.
While this subject had been under discussion in the house, the senate had passed and sent down a bill having the same object in view. The house bill, with the report of the committee, having been laid upon the table, the senate bill was taken up. That bill provided that neither the importer, nor any purchaser under him, should "have or gain" any title to the persons illegally imported, leaving them to be disposed of as the states might direct. Williams, of South Carolina, moved to substitute the word "retain" instead of the words "have or gain." The motion to strike out prevailed, but, instead of "retain," the word "hold" was substituted; whereupon Williams declared, in a very vehement speech, that he considered this word "hold" as leading to the destruction and massacre of all the whites in the southern states; and he attacked Bidwell with great violence as the author of this calamity. The punishment of death was also stricken from the bill, and, thus amended, it was reported to the house. These amendments being concurred in, the bill was passed, one hundred and thirteen to five, and was sent back to the senate.
But, notwithstanding this concession to the south, the trouble was not yet over. Among other precautions against the transportation coastwise of imported slaves, the senate bill had forbidden the transport, for the purpose of sale, of any negro whatever on board any vessel under forty tons burden. A proviso had been added by the house, excluding from the operation of this section the coastwise transportation of slaves accompanied by the owner or his agent. The refusal of the senate to concur in this amendment called out John Randolph, who hitherto had hardly spoken. "If the bill passed without this proviso, the southern people," he said, "would set the act at defiance. He would set the first example. He would go with his own slaves, and be at the expense of asserting the rights of the slaveholders. The next step would be to prohibit the slaveholder himself going from one state to another. The bill without the amendment was worse than the exaction of ship-money. The proprietor of sacred and chartered rights was prevented from the constitutional use of his property."
