[8] The committee
reported Izard's bill; but it was defeated in the House by a vote of 47 to
51, and an act was passed instead for an emission of bills of credit by the
state. The advocacy of the trade by Thomas Pinckney indicates that at this
time there was no unanimity of conservatives against it.
[Footnote 7: Charleston _Evening Gazette_, Sept. 26 and 28, 1785.]
[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., Oct. 1, 1785.]
When two years later the stringency persisted, the radicals in the
legislature demanded a law to stay the execution of debts, while the now
unified conservatives proposed again the stoppage of the slave trade. In
the course of the debate David Ramsay "made a jocose remark that every
man who went to church last Sunday and said his prayers was bound by a
spiritual obligation to refuse the importation of slaves. They had devoutly
prayed not to be led into temptation, and negroes were a temptation too
great to be resisted."[9] The issue was at length adjusted by combining
the two projects of a stay-law and a prohibition of slave importations for
three years in a single bill. This was approved on March 28, 1787; and a
further act of the same day added a penalty of fine to that of forfeiture
for the illegal introduction of slaves.
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