federal government was concerned, would be to legalize the slave trade forever, and protect it from all burdens.[39] Maryland (by her legislature, then sitting,) to her immortal honour, and Pennsylvania and Virginia, exhibited a determination to change this section, so as to arrest the trade through the action of the federal government, either by prohibition or tax. The New England States, South Carolina, and Georgia, opposed them, and advocated the original section, assigning various grounds. The difference threatened to make shipwreck of the whole work of the Convention, when Gouverneur Morris adroitly proposed to commit the subject, along with that of the proposed navigation law, in order that disagreeing parties might be induced, by private conference, to combine mutual concessions into a sort of bargain. The subjects were accordingly committed to a Committee of one from each State. This Committee reported, August 24th, "in favour of not allowing Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves before 1800, but giving them power to impose a duty at a rate not exceeding the average of other imports." South Carolina (through General Pinckney) moved to prolong the importation from 1800 to 1808, _and Massachusetts_ (through Mr. Gorham) _seconded the motion_. It was then passed, as last proposed, _New Hampshire_, _Massachusetts_, _Connecticut_, (the only New England States then present,) Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina, voting in the affirmative, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia in the negative.[40] The maritime States soon after gained their point, of authorizing Congress to pass, by a majority vote, a navigation law for their advantage. [Footnote 38: Madison Papers, v. i., pp. 422-425.] [Footnote 39: Ibid., v. ii., p. 1234.] [Footnote 40: Madison Papers, v. iii., pp. 1398 _et seq._] Thus, by the assistance of New England, the iniquities of the African slave trade, and the influx of that alien and savage race into America, were prolonged from the institution of the federal government until 1808. Is it said, that New England had at this time no interest in slavery, did not value it, and was already engaged in removing it at home? This is true; and it is so much the worse for her historical position. It only shows that she desired to fix that institution which she had ascertained to be a curse to her, upon her neighbours, for the sake of keeping open twenty years longer an infamous but gainful employment, and of securing a legislative bounty to her shipping. In other words, her policy was simply mercenary. And these votes for prolonging the slave trade effectually rob her of credit for emancipation at home; proving beyond all peradventure, that the latter measure was wholly prompted by her sense of her own interests, and not of the rights of the negro. For if the latter motive had governed, must it not have made her the equal opponent of the increase of slavery in Carolina and Georgia?