Again. The argument, that the allowance of the "importation" of "persons," implies the allowance of property in such persons, would imply a recognition of the validity of the slave laws of other countries; for unless slaves were obtained by valid purchase abroad--which purchase implies the existence and validity of foreign slave laws--the importer certainly could not claim to import his slaves as property; but he would appear, at the custom-house, as a mere pirate, claiming to have his captures legalized. So that, _according to the slave argument_, the simple use of the word "importation," in the constitution, as applied to "persons," bound our government, not only to the sanction and toleration of slavery in our own country, but to the recognition of the validity of the slave laws of other countries. But farther. The allowance of the "importation" of slaves, as such, under this clause of the constitution, would imply that congress must take actual, and even the most critical cognizance of the slave laws of other countries; and that they should allow neither the mere word of the person calling himself the owner, nor any thing short of the fullest and clearest legal proof, according to the laws of those countries, to be sufficient to enable him to enter his slaves, as property, at the custom-house; otherwise any masters of vessels, from England or France, as well as from Africa, might, on their arrival here, claim their passengers as slaves. Did the constitution, in this clause, by simply using the word "importation," instead of immigration, intend to throw upon the national government--at the hazard of making it a party to the illegal enslavement of human beings--the responsibility of investigating and deciding upon the legality and credibility of all the evidence that might be offered by the piratical masters of slave ships, to prove their valid purchase of, and their right of property in their human cargoes, according to the slave laws of the countries from which they should bring them? Such must have been the intention of the constitution, if it intended, (as it must, if it intended any thing of this kind,) that the fact of "importation" under the commercial regulations of congress, should be thereafter a sufficient authority for holding in slavery the persons imported.