The Committee on Foreign Relations reported that the power of regulating the slave trade would properly be conferred upon the Confederate government, but, meanwhile, believing that the slave trade should be prohibited until the Confederacy was formed, the committee reported an ordinance forbidding it. Morgan (s.) of Dallas opposed the ordinance because it was silent as to the cause of the prohibition. He was opposed to the slave trade on the ground of public policy. If at liberty to carry out Christian convictions, he would have Africans brought over to be made Christian slaves, the highest condition attainable by the negro. In holding slaves, the South was charged with sin and crime, but the southern people were unable to perceive the wrong and unwilling to cease to do what the North considered evil. The present movement rested, in great measure, upon their assertion of the right to hold the African in slavery. The laws of Congress denouncing the slave trade as piracy had been a shelter to those who assailed the South, and had affected the standing of the South among nations. If the slave trade were wrong, then it was much worse to bring Christian and enlightened negroes from Virginia to Alabama than a heathen savage from Africa to Alabama. Slavery was the only force which had ever been able to elevate the negro. He believed that on grounds of public policy the traffic should be condemned, but it was a question better left to the Confederate government, because the various states would not make uniform laws. There were slaves enough for twenty years and, when needed, more could be had. Reopening of the African slave trade should be forbidden by the Confederate government expressly for reasons of public policy.