This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions.

It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid traffic.

In several states this trade is a chief source of wealth.

It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave trade) _"the internal slave trade_." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated.

That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy.