Let it not, Mr. Chairman, be inferred, from what I have said, that I am in principle opposed to the effect which I am confident the mover of the resolution expected it would produce. No member of this House is, or can be, more decidedly opposed to slavery than I am. In the State from which I come slavery is scarcely, if at all, known. I do not know whether, at this moment, it has any existence there. However the inhabitants of that State may differ on other points, on the subject of slavery we are all united. All parties have joined in abolishing it. I sincerely wish that Congress possessed a constitutional power to abolish it, or at least to check its further progress in the United States. If they did possess such power, I would most cordially concur in putting it into operation. Instead of ten dollars, I wish the constitution would warrant us in imposing a tax of one hundred, or of five hundred dollars on each imported slave. I would willingly vote for that sum, because it would amount to an entire prohibition of such importation, and effectually destroy the traffic which I consider highly impolitic, as well as contrary to the principles of justice. When the present constitution was adopted, there were no laws in several States to prohibit the importation of slaves. It is but a few years since such a law was passed by the State of Georgia. During all that period money was much wanted. The revenue was not adequate to the demand. Government was compelled to have recourse to loans, and in some instances had to submit to a heavy interest; yet in all that time the idea, I believe, was never suggested in Congress of supplying the deficiency by imposing a tax on slaves, although numbers were then imported. From this it may be inferred, that at that time the power vested in Congress by the constitution of imposing a tax of ten dollars on each person imported into any of the then existing States, agreeably to its laws, was not considered as given for the purpose of raising revenue. It was given, it may be presumed, for the purpose of being used as a check to the trade, and at the time the constitution was adopted, the exercise of that power might have contributed to produce such effect. The price of slaves was then low; their labor was not so productive to their owners, and, of course, ten dollars in addition to the then current price might, in some measure, have checked the spirit of purchasing. But soon after that period, by the introduction of the cultivation of cotton, the labor of slaves became more valuable, and their price enhanced in proportion. Ten dollars then bore some proportion to the price of a slave, but at this time it is comparatively as a cipher. A planter who can find his advantage in giving four hundred dollars, which is said to be the present current price of a good negro, will think but little of ten additional dollars. In the present state of things, therefore, I take it the