Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/28

10 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS committees on the judiciary and finance. For many years he was chairman of the former. In March, 1822, he voted, on the bill to provide a territorial government for Florida, that no slave should be directly or indirectly imported into that territory "except by a citizen removing into it for actual settlement and being at the time a bona-fide owner of such slave." Van Buren voted with the northern senators for the retention of this clause; but its exclusion by the vote of the southern sena tors did not import any countenance to the intro duction of slaves into Florida from abroad, as such introduction was already prohibited by a Federal statute which in another part of the bill was ex tended to Florida. Always averse to imprisonment for debt as the result of misfortune, Van Buren took an early opportunity to advocate its abolition as a feature of Federal jurisprudence. He opposed in 1824 the ratification of the convention with England for the suppression of the slave-trade (perhaps because a qualified right of search was annexed to it) , though the convention was urgently pressed on the senate by President Monroe. He supported William H. Crawford for the presidency in 1824, both in the congressional caucus and before the people. He voted for the protective tariff of 1824, and for that of 1828, though he took no part in the discussion of the economic principles under lying either. He voted for the latter under instruc-