emancipation of slavery would not be submitted to. They said that South
Carolina and Georgia could only be cultivated by negro slaves, for the
climate, the nature of the soil, and ancient habits, precluded the
whites from performing the labor. If the negro were freed he would not
remain in those States; hence all the fertile rice and indigo swamps
must be deserted and would become a wilderness. Furthermore the
prohibiting of the slave trade was at that time unconstitutional. James
Madison poured oil on the troubled waters by stating that Congress
could not interfere according to constitutional restrictions, "Yet,"
he said, "there are a variety of ways by which it could countenance the
abolition; and regulations might be made to introduce the freed slaves
into the new states to be formed out of the Western territory." (In
parenthesis I remark that if Madison could have looked down the years,
he would have found that even though emancipated, the negro will not
leave the white settlements. Take our own little city of Lexington where
some 17,000 of them are congregated, living in discomfort and poverty in
most cases; yet their nature is to depend in some fashion upon their
white neighbors and employers.)

It was finally decided in the House that Congress could not prohibit
the slave trade until the year 1808--that Congress had no authority
to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of
them within any of the States. This last resolution which is of great
historic importance, may be found on page 1523 of the II Vol. of Annals
of Congress.

Washington wrote to David Stuart in June 1790: "The introduction of the
Quaker memorial respecting slavery was, to be sure, not only ill-timed,
but occasioned a great waste of time."