This was pertinaciously pressed by the
South, even to the extent of absolute restriction on Congress. John
Rutledge said:
"If the Convention thinks that North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia will ever agree to the Plan (the National Constitution), unless
their right to import slaves be untouched, the expectation is vain.
The people of those States will never be such fools as to give up so
important an interest." Charles Pinckney said: "South Carolina can never
receive the Plan, if it prohibits the slave-trade." Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney "thought himself bound to declare candidly, that he did not
think South Carolina would stop her importations of slaves in any short
time." The effrontery of the slave-masters was matched by the sordidness
of the Eastern members, who yielded again. Luther Martin, the eminent
member of the Convention, in his contemporary address to the Legislature
of Maryland, described the compromise. "I found," he said, "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_.
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