37. ~Reception of the Clause by the Nation.~ When the proposed
Constitution was before the country, the slave-trade article came in for
no small amount of condemnation and apology. In the pamphlets of the day
it was much discussed. One of the points in Mason's "Letter of
Objections" was that "the general legislature is restrained from
prohibiting the further importation of slaves for twenty odd years,
though such importations render the United States weaker, more
vulnerable, and less capable of defence."[24] To this Iredell replied,
through the columns of the _State Gazette_ of North Carolina: "If all
the States had been willing to adopt this regulation [i.e., to prohibit
the slave-trade], I should as an individual most heartily have approved
of it, because even if the importation of slaves in fact rendered us
stronger, less vulnerable and more capable of defence, I should rejoice
in the prohibition of it, as putting an end to a trade which has already
continued too long for the honor and humanity of those concerned in it.
But as it was well known that South Carolina and Georgia thought a
further continuance of such importations useful to them, and would not
perhaps otherwise have agreed to the new constitution, those States
which had been importing till they were satisfied, could not with
decency have insisted upon their relinquishing advantages themselves had
already enjoyed.
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