That  is,  the  general  government  had  no  authority  to
prohibit  the  importation  of  slaves  into  the  United
States  prior  to  eighteen  hundred  and  eight ;  nor  had  it
authority  over  the  coastwise  and  interstate  trade  in
slaves  prior  to  that  time.  But  as  soon  as  that  limitation
of  the  power  of  the  general  government  ceased,  the
subject  of  the  foreign  and  domestic  slave  trade  was
entirely  within  the  legal  control  of  congress,  and  the
traffic  in  slaves  carried  on  between  the  slave-breeding
and  the  planting  states,  could  have  been  prohibited  at
any  time  thereafter.
