Mr. LOWNDES.--I will trespass but a very short time upon the attention of the House at this stage of the business, but as I have objections to the resolution, it may be proper that I should state them now. I will do so briefly, reserving to myself the privilege of giving my opinion more at length when the bill is before the House, should the resolution be adopted, and a bill brought in. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, to find that the conduct of the Legislature of the State of South Carolina, in repealing its law prohibitory of the importation of negroes, has excited so much dissatisfaction and resentment as I find it has done with the far greater part of this House. If gentlemen will take a dispassionate review of the circumstances under which this repeal was made, I think this dissatisfaction and resentment will be removed, and I should indulge the hope that this contemplated tax will not be imposed. Antecedent to the adoption of the constitution under which we now act, the Legislature of South Carolina passed an act prohibiting the importation of negroes from Africa, sanctioned by severe penalties. I speak from recollection, but I believe not less than the forfeiture of the negro and a hundred pounds sterling for each brought into the State; and this act has been continued in force until it was repealed by the Legislature at its last session. This long interdiction, I think, manifests, on the part of the government of the State, a disinclination to the trade, and, had we received the aid from Congress which was necessary to enforce the act, the repeal which is now complained of would never, in my opinion, have taken place. But, Mr. Speaker, the State was unable to enforce its laws. It had given up to the Government of the United States all revenues derived from foreign imposts, and was, therefore, necessarily divested of the means of preventing the introduction into the country from sea of whatever the excitements to gain might allure it into. The geographical situation of our country is not unknown. With navigable rivers running into the heart of it, it was impossible, with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren, who, in some parts of the Union, in defiance of the authority of the General Government, have been engaged in this trade, from introducing them into the country. The law was completely evaded, and for the last year or two, Africans were introduced into the country in numbers little short, I believe, of what they would have been had the trade been a legal one. Under these circumstances, sir, it appears to me to have been the duty of the Legislature to repeal the law, and remove from the eyes of the people the spectacle of its authority being daily violated.