The fullest account of the proceedings of this committee is given in
Luther Martin's letter to his constituents, and is confirmed in its main
particulars by similar reports of other delegates. Martin writes: "A
committee of _one_ member from each state was chosen by ballot, to take
this part of the system under their consideration, and to endeavor to
agree upon some report which should reconcile those states [i.e., South
Carolina and Georgia]. To this committee also was referred the following
proposition, which had been reported by the committee of detail, viz.:
'No navigation act shall be passed without the assent of two thirds of
the members present in each house'--a proposition which the staple and
commercial states were solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should
be placed too much under the power of the Eastern States, but which
these last States were as anxious to reject. This committee--of which
also I had the honor to be a member--met, and took under their
consideration the subjects committed to them. I found the _Eastern_
States, notwithstanding their _aversion to slavery_, were very willing
to indulge the Southern States at least with a temporary liberty to
prosecute the slave trade, provided the Southern States would, in their
turn, gratify _them_, by laying no restriction on navigation acts; and
after a very little time, the committee, by a great majority, agreed on
a report, by which the general government was to be prohibited from
preventing the importation of slaves for a limited time, and the
restrictive clause relative to navigation acts was to be omitted.
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