The District has become the great slave-market of
North America, and the port of Alexandria is the Guinea of our proud
republic, whence "cargoes of despair" are continually departing[A].
[Footnote A: One dealer, John Armfield, advertises in the National
Intelligencer of the 10th of February last, that he has three vessels in
the trade, and they will leave the port of Alexandria on the first and
fifteenth of each month.]
In the city which bears the name of the Father of his country, dealers
in human flesh receive licenses for the vile traffic, at four hundred
dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their
columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for
children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to
wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the
safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the
Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED
STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to
slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous
character.
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