[58] The bill passed the Senate,
but caused long and excited debate in the House.[59] It was argued, on
the one hand, that the case in Mississippi was different from that in
the Northwest Territory, because slavery was a legal institution in all
the surrounding country, and to prohibit the institution was virtually
to prohibit the settling of the country. On the other hand, Gallatin
declared that if this amendment should not obtain, "he knew not how
slaves could be prevented from being introduced by way of New Orleans,
by persons who are not citizens of the United States." It was moved to
strike out the excepting clause; but the motion received only twelve
votes,--an apparent indication that Congress either did not appreciate
the great precedent it was establishing, or was reprehensibly careless.
Harper of South Carolina then succeeded in building up the Charleston
slave-trade interest by a section forbidding the slave traffic from
"without the limits of the United States." Thatcher moved to strike out
the last clause of this amendment, and thus to prohibit the interstate
trade, but he failed to get a second.[60] Thus the act passed, punishing
the introduction of slaves from without the country by a fine of $300
for each slave, and freeing the slave.[61]
In 1804 President Jefferson communicated papers to Congress on the
status of slavery and the slave-trade in Louisiana.
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