A similar question, in relation to the extent of the commercial power, was destined to arise out of the relations of the different States to the slave-trade. If the power to regulate commerce, that might be conferred upon the general government, was to be universal and unlimited, it must include the right to prohibit the importation of slaves. If the right to sanction or tolerate the importation of slaves, which, like all other political rights, belonged to the people of the several States as sovereign communities, was to be retained by them as an exception from the commercial power which they might confer upon the national legislature, that exception must be clearly and definitely established. For several reasons, the question was necessarily to be met, as soon as the character and extent of the commercial power should come into discussion. While the trade had been prohibited by all the other States, including Virginia and Maryland, it had only been subjected to a duty by North Carolina, and was subjected to a similar discouragement by South Carolina and Georgia. The basis of representation in the national legislature, in which it had been agreed that the slaves should be included in a certain ratio, created a strong political motive with the Northern States to obtain for the general government a power to prevent further importations. It was fortunate that this motive existed; for the honor and reputation of the country were concerned to put an end to this traffic. No other nation, it was true, had at that time abolished it; but here were the assembled States of America, engaged in framing a Constitution of government, that ought, if the American character was to be consistent with the principles of the American Revolution, to go as far in the recognition of human rights as the circumstances of their actual situation would admit. What was practicable to be done, from considerations of humanity, and all that could be successfully done, was the measure of their duty as statesmen, admitted and acted upon by the framers of the Constitution, including many of those who represented slaveholding constituencies, as well as the representatives of States that had either abolished both the traffic in slaves and the institution itself, or were obviously destined to do it.