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 appear
to legislate for the sake of appearances.... I should like to know what
honor you will derive from a law that will be broken every day of your
lives."[29] Mr. Stanton said with an air of deprecation on behalf of his
state of Rhode Island: "I wish the law made so strong as to prevent this
trade in future; but I cannot believe that a man ought to be hung for only
stealing a negro. Those who buy them are as bad as those who import them,
and deserve hanging quite as much." The yeas and nays recorded at the end
of the exhausting day showed 63 in favor and 53 against the substitution of
imprisonment. The North was divided, 29 to 37, with the nays coming mostly
from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut; the South, although South
Carolina as well as Kentucky was evenly divided, cast 34 yeas to 16 nays.
Virginia and Maryland, which might have been expected to be doubtful,
virtually settled the question by casting 17 yeas against 6 nays.
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