US Presidency
1859

After this has been done, to employ the language of the Kansas and Nebraska act, they shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission. This sound principle has happily been recognized in some form or other by an almost unanimous vote of both Houses of the last Congress. All lawful means at my command have been employed, and shall continue to be employed, to execute the laws against the African slave trade. After a most careful and rigorous examination of our coasts and a thorough investigation of the subject, we have not been able to discover that any slaves have been imported into the United States except the cargo by the Wanderer, numbering between three and four hundred. Those engaged in this unlawful enterprise have been rigorously prosecuted, but not with as much success as their crimes have deserved. A number of them are still under prosecution. Our history proves that the fathers of the Republic, in advance of all other nations, condemned the African slave trade.