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Colorado tanker: "I suppose it would be within Senator Davis’ interesting views on State sovereignty that each State may regulate or not the slave trade as it sees fit - except that the Constitution reserves that power to Congress."

Right, the US Constitution authorized Congress to abolish or allow international slave importations, so it's odd that Davis is quoted as saying,

"...the General government had no power to limit importations of any state.
If it be a protective duty by which states are taxed, by what right is slave property to be deprived of this protection?"

I read it as Davis arguing to revoke US laws against importing slaves, plus, in effect, these are among his terms to avoid a larger the "civil war" which Davis says was even then happening -- referring specifically to Bleeding Kansas & John Brown's raid.

I suppose it would be within Senator Davis’ interesting views on State sovereignty that each State may regulate or not the slave trade as it sees fit - except that the Constitution reserves that power to Congress.

It seems unclear what provision of the Constitution reserves to Congress the power to regulate the slave trade. Is this a reference to the interstate commerce clause? Does it pertain to regulation of trade in the territories?

I know of no Federal regulation of the domestic slave trade. The Constitution restricted banning or taxing the international importation of slaves until 1808. It was then banned. There were four laws on that trade, the Act of 1807 (effective 1/1/1808, banning the trade), and the Act of 1818, 1819, 1820. The internation trade became a capital offense. The domestic slave trade in the United States during the civil war era was interstate trade, largely with northern slave states selling slaves south.

The slave trade notoriously did business in the capital, a Federal district, with an auction block down the road from the White House. In the absence of any Federal regulation prohibiting the domestic slave trade, what would prevent a State from passing regulations which violate no Federal regulation? States allowed or prohibited slavery.

Virginia passed a bill in 1779 to the effect,

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no persons shall, henceforth, be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the first day of this present session of Assembly, and the descendants of the females of them.
Negroes and mulattoes which shall hereafter be brought into this commonwealth and kept therein one whole year, together, or so long at different times as shall amount to one year, shall be free. [But if they shall not depart the commonwealth within one year thereafter they shall be out of the protection of the laws.
. . .

“51. A Bill concerning Slaves, 18 June 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0051. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 2, 1777–18 June 1779, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 470–473.]

The property right in slaves was certainly recognized in the fugitive slave clause in Article 4.

Regarding freedmen migration, Lincoln appeared to opine that the north could decide whether to receive them, which could not be a Federal action.

CW 5:534-535, President Lincoln, December 1, 1862, Annual Message to Congress

Heretofore colored people, to some extent, have fled north from bondage; and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from. Their old masters will give them wages at least until new laborers can be procured; and the freed men, in turn, will gladly give their labor for the wages, till new homes can be found for them, in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on the mutual interests involved. And, in any event, cannot the north decide for itself, whether to receive them?