importation of slaves a felony punishable with death.  Upon Early’s motion this provision was promptly stricken out in committee of the whole by a vote of 60 to 41; whereupon Bidwell renewed his proposal to strike out the forfeiture of slaves.  He was numerously supported in speeches whose main burden was that the United States government must not become the receiver of stolen goods.  The speeches in reply stressed afresh the pivotal quality of forfeiture in an effective law; and Bidwell when pressed for an alternative plan could only say that he might if necessary be willing to leave them to the disposal of the several states, but was at any rate “opposed to disgracing our statute book with a recognition of the principle of slavery.”  Quincy replied that he wished Bidwell and his fellows “would descend from their high abstract ground to the level of things in their own state—­such as have, do and will exist after your laws, and in spite of them.”  The Southern members, said he, were anxious for nothing so much as a total prohibition, and for that reason were insistent upon forfeiture.  For the sake of enforcing the law, and for the sake of controlling the future condition of the smuggled slaves, forfeiture was imperative.  Such a provision would not necessarily admit that the importers had had a title in the slaves before capture, but it and it alone would effectively divest them of any color of title to which they might pretend.  The amendment was defeated by a vote of 36 to 63.

When the bill with amendments was reported to the House by the committee of the whole, on December 31, there was vigorous debate upon the question of substituting imprisonment of from five to ten years in place of the death penalty.  Mr. Talmadge of Connecticut supported the provision of death with a biblical citation; and Mr. Smilie said he considered it the very marrow of the bill.  Mr. Lloyd of Maryland thought the death penalty would be out of proportion to the crime, and considered the extract from Exodus inapplicable since few of the negroes imported had been stolen in Africa.  But Mr. Olin of Vermont announced that the man-stealing argument had persuaded him in favor of the extreme penalty.  Early now became furious, and in his fury, frank.  In a preceding speech he had pronounced slavery “an evil regretted by every man in the country."[28] He now said:  “A large majority of the people in the Southern states do not ... believe it immoral to hold human flesh in bondage.  Many deprecate slavery as an evil; as a political evil; but not as a crime.  Reflecting men apprehend, at some future day, evils, incalculable evils, from it; but it is a fact that few, very few, consider it as a crime.  It is best to be candid on this subject....  I will tell the truth.  A large majority of people in the Southern states do not consider slavery as an evil.  Let the gentleman go and travel in that quarter of the Union; let him go from neighborhood to neighborhood, and he will find that this is the fact.  Some gentlemen