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.
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