Mr. Hartley moved to refer the Address...to a committee...

Mr. White seconded the motion.

Mr. Smith, (of S.C.)-- However respectable the petitioners may be, I hope gentlemen will consider that others equally respectable are opposed to the object which is aimed at....

Mr. Jackson ....If Congress are disposed to interfere in the importation of slaves, they can take the subject up without advisers, because the Constitution expressly mentions all the power they can exercise on the subject.

Mr. Sherman ....The sooner the subject was taken up he thought it would be the better.

Mr. Parker.--...I cannot help expressing the pleasure I feel in finding so considerable a part of the community attending to matters of such momentous concern to the future prosperity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty, as a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause; and it is incumbent upon every member of this House to sift the subject well, and ascertain what can be done to restrain a practice so nefarious....

Mr. Madison.--...I apprehend, gentlemen need not be alarmed at any measure it is likely Congress will take; because they will recollect, that the Constitution secures to the individual States the right of admitting, in they think proper, the importation of slaves into their own territory, for eighteen years yet unexpired;....

...It may be, that foreigners take the advantage of the liberty afforded them by the American trade, to employ our shipping in the slave trade between Africa and the West Indies, when they are restrained from employing their own by restrictive laws of their nation. If this is the case, is there any person of humanity that would not wish to prevent them?

Mr. Stone feared that if Congress took any measures indicative of an intention to interfere with the kind of property alluded to, it would sink it in value very considerably, and might be injurious to a great number of the citizens, particularly in the Southern States. He thought the subject was of general concern, and that the petitioners had no more right to interfere with it than any other members of the community. It was an unfortunate circumstance, that it was the disposition of religious sects to imagine they understood the rights of human nature better than all the world besides; and that they would in consequence, be meddling with concerns in which they had nothing to do.....

Mr. Burke He had a respect for the body of Quakers, but, nevertheless, he did not believe they had more virtue or religion than other people, nor perhaps so much, if they were examined to the bottom, notwithstanding their outward pretences...The rights of the Southern States ought not to be threatened, and their property endangered, to please people who would be unaffected by the consequences.

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