But, notwithstanding all the information our country enjoys, numbers in the Eastern States have been embarked, for some years past, in the cruel traffic of slaves, and smuggling them into other States. And it is to be feared that many of them are, at this moment, preparing means to stimulate the barbarous tribes of Africa to war against each other; mutually to torture every human feeling; to violate the strongest ties of nature and affection; to tear the husband from the wife, and the wife from the husband; the parent from the child, and the child from the parent; and are coolly and deliberately forging irons, that they may have the infernal pleasure of coolly and deliberately riveting them on the unfortunate men, women, and children, who may fall into their hands. Such an enterprise, such a traffic as this, must affect our national character; it is self-evidently wrong, and, at first view, must receive the disapprobation of every disinterested man. The genius of our constitution, the mildness of its administration, and the prevailing sentiment of the nation, must sanction every measure to discourage the further admission of a people whose numbers already excite most painful sensations. In a word, the tax is constitutional; no article can bear a tax better than the one here proposed; it is a uniform tax, and justified on the ground of sound policy; and so far as it tends to discourage the slave-trade, it is supported by every principle of virtue. If I have uttered a word offensive to any member of the House, it will not be attributable to design, but to an honest solicitude to promote the honor and interest of our country. Mr. BEDINGER said he differed widely, as to the effects of this motion, from the gentleman who had just spoken. He was as hostile to the slave-trade as any man in the Union; and if he could believe that the imposition of a tax of ten dollars upon every imported negro would check the importation, he would vote for it. But he believed the resolution would have a different effect, and would rather sanction than discourage the trade. In point of revenue, the tax was of little consideration. Suppose a thousand slaves to be imported monthly, the amount of the tax would be about $100,000 a year; which in four years, at the expiration of which Congress would have power to prohibit the trade altogether, would amount to $400,000--a sum too trifling to be put into competition with the adoption of any measure that went to sanction such a trade.