THE SUPPRESSION OF THE
AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE
TO THE
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
1638–1870

Volume I

Harvard Historical Studies

1896

Longmans, Green, and Co.

New York

Preface

This monograph was begun during my residence as
Rogers Memorial Fellow at Harvard University, and is
based mainly upon a study of the sources, i.e., national,
State, and colonial statutes, Congressional documents, reports
of societies, personal narratives, etc. The collection of laws
available for this research was, I think, nearly complete; on
the other hand, facts and statistics bearing on the economic
side of the study have been difficult to find, and my conclusions
are consequently liable to modification from this source.

The question of the suppression of the slave-trade is so intimately
connected with the questions as to its rise, the system
of American slavery, and the whole colonial policy of the
eighteenth century, that it is difficult to isolate it, and at the
same time to avoid superficiality on the one hand, and unscientific
narrowness of view on the other. While I could not
hope entirely to overcome such a difficulty, I nevertheless
trust that I have succeeded in rendering this monograph a
small contribution to the scientific study of slavery and the
American Negro.

I desire to express my obligation to Dr. Albert Bushnell
Hart, of Harvard University, at whose suggestion I began this
work and by whose kind aid and encouragement I have
brought it to a close; also I have to thank the trustees of the
John F. Slater Fund, whose appointment made it possible to
test the conclusions of this study by the general principles laid
down in German universities.

W.E. BURGHARDT Du BOIS.

Wilberforce University,
March, 1896.

5

Contents

9

Chapter I

INTRODUCTORY.

1. Plan of the Monograph. This monograph proposes to set
forth the efforts made in the United States of America, from
early colonial times until the present, to limit and suppress
the trade in slaves between Africa and these shores.

The study begins with the colonial period, setting forth in
brief the attitude of England and, more in detail, the attitude
of the planting, farming, and trading groups of colonies
toward the slave-trade. It deals next with the first concerted
effort against the trade and with the further action of the
individual States. The important work of the Constitutional
Convention follows, together with the history of the trade in
that critical period which preceded the Act of 1807. The
attempt to suppress the trade from 1807 to 1830 is next
recounted. A chapter then deals with the slave-trade as an
international problem. Finally the development of the crises
up to the Civil War is studied, together with the steps leading
to the final suppression; and a concluding chapter seeks to
sum up the results of the investigation. Throughout the
monograph the institution of slavery and the interstate slave-trade
are considered only incidentally.

2. The Rise of the English Slave-Trade. Any attempt to
consider the attitude of the English colonies toward the African
slave-trade must be prefaced by a word as to the attitude
of England herself and the development of the trade in her
hands.1

Sir John Hawkins’s celebrated voyage took place in 1562,
but probably not until 16312 did a regular chartered company
10undertake to carry on the trade.3 This company was unsuccessful,4
and was eventually succeeded by the “Company of
Royal Adventurers trading to Africa,” chartered by Charles II.
in 1662, and including the Queen Dowager and the Duke of
York.5 The company contracted to supply the West Indies
with three thousand slaves annually; but contraband trade,
misconduct, and war so reduced it that in 1672 it surrendered
its charter to another company for £34,000.6 This new corporation,
chartered by Charles II. as the “Royal African Company,”
proved more successful than its predecessors, and
carried on a growing trade for a quarter of a century.

In 1698 Parliamentary interference with the trade began. By
the Statute 9 and 10 William and Mary, chapter 26, private
traders, on payment of a duty of 10% on English goods exported
to Africa, were allowed to participate in the trade.
This was brought about by the clamor of the merchants, especially
the “American Merchants,” who “in their Petition
suggest, that it would be a great Benefit to the Kingdom to
secure the Trade by maintaining Forts and Castles there, with
an equal Duty upon all Goods exported.”7 This plan, being a
compromise between maintaining the monopoly intact and
entirely abolishing it, was adopted, and the statute declared
the trade “highly Beneficial and Advantageous to this Kingdom,
and to the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging.”

Having thus gained practically free admittance to the field,
English merchants sought to exclude other nations by securing
a monopoly of the lucrative Spanish colonial slave-trade.11
Their object was finally accomplished by the signing of the
Assiento in 1713.8

The Assiento was a treaty between England and Spain by
which the latter granted the former a monopoly of the Spanish
colonial slave-trade for thirty years, and England engaged
to supply the colonies within that time with at least 144,000
slaves, at the rate of 4,800 per year. England was also to advance
Spain 200,000 crowns, and to pay a duty of 33½ crowns
for each slave imported. The kings of Spain and England
were each to receive one-fourth of the profits of the trade,
and the Royal African Company were authorized to import
as many slaves as they wished above the specified number in
the first twenty-five years, and to sell them, except in three
ports, at any price they could get.

It is stated that, in the twenty years from 1713 to 1733, fifteen
thousand slaves were annually imported into America by the
English, of whom from one-third to one-half went to the
Spanish colonies.9 To the company itself the venture proved
a financial failure; for during the years 1729–1750 Parliament
assisted the Royal Company by annual grants which
amounted to £90,000,10 and by 1739 Spain was a creditor to
the extent of £68,000, and threatened to suspend the treaty.
The war interrupted the carrying out of the contract, but the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle extended the limit by four years.
Finally, October 5, 1750, this privilege was waived for a money
consideration paid to England; the Assiento was ended, and
the Royal Company was bankrupt.

By the Statute 23 George II., chapter 31, the old company
was dissolved and a new “Company of Merchants trading to
Africa” erected in its stead.11 Any merchant so desiring was
allowed to engage in the trade on payment of certain small
duties, and such merchants formed a company headed by nine
directors. This marked the total abolition of monopoly in the
12slave-trade, and was the form under which the trade was carried
on until after the American Revolution.

That the slave-trade was the very life of the colonies had,
by 1700, become an almost unquestioned axiom in British
practical economics. The colonists themselves declared slaves
“the strength and sinews of this western world,”12 and the
lack of them “the grand obstruction”13 here, as the settlements
“cannot subsist without supplies of them.”14 Thus,
with merchants clamoring at home and planters abroad, it
easily became the settled policy of England to encourage the
slave-trade. Then, too, she readily argued that what was an
economic necessity in Jamaica and the Barbadoes could
scarcely be disadvantageous to Carolina, Virginia, or even
New York. Consequently, the colonial governors were generally
instructed to “give all due encouragement and invitation
to merchants and others, … and in particular to the
royal African company of England.”15 Duties laid on the importer,
and all acts in any way restricting the trade, were
frowned upon and very often disallowed. “Whereas,” ran
Governor Dobbs’s instructions, “Acts have been passed in
some of our Plantations in America for laying duties on the
importation and exportation of Negroes to the great discouragement
of the Merchants trading thither from the
coast of Africa…. It is our Will and Pleasure that you
do not give your assent to or pass any Law imposing
duties upon Negroes imported into our Province of North
Carolina.”16

The exact proportions of the slave-trade to America can be
but approximately determined. From 1680 to 1688 the African
Company sent 249 ships to Africa, shipped there 60,78313
Negro slaves, and after losing 14,387 on the middle passage,
delivered 46,396 in America. The trade increased early in the
eighteenth century, 104 ships clearing for Africa in 1701; it
then dwindled until the signing of the Assiento, standing at
74 clearances in 1724. The final dissolution of the monopoly
in 1750 led—excepting in the years 1754–57, when the closing
of Spanish marts sensibly affected the trade—to an extraordinary
development, 192 clearances being made in 1771. The
Revolutionary War nearly stopped the traffic; but by 1786 the
clearances had risen again to 146.

To these figures must be added the unregistered trade of
Americans and foreigners. It is probable that about 25,000
slaves were brought to America each year between 1698 and
1707. The importation then dwindled, but rose after the Assiento
to perhaps 30,000. The proportion, too, of these slaves
carried to the continent now began to increase. Of about
20,000 whom the English annually imported from 1733 to
1766, South Carolina alone received some 3,000. Before the
Revolution, the total exportation to America is variously estimated
as between 40,000 and 100,000 each year. Bancroft
places the total slave population of the continental colonies at
59,000 in 1714, 78,000 in 1727, and 293,000 in 1754. The census
of 1790 showed 697,897 slaves in the United States.17

In colonies like those in the West Indies and in South Carolina
and Georgia, the rapid importation into America of a
multitude of savages gave rise to a system of slavery far different
from that which the late Civil War abolished. The strikingly
harsh and even inhuman slave codes in these colonies
show this. Crucifixion, burning, and starvation were legal
modes of punishment.18 The rough and brutal character of the
time and place was partly responsible for this, but a more
decisive reason lay in the fierce and turbulent character of
the imported Negroes. The docility to which long years of
bondage and strict discipline gave rise was absent, and in14surrections
and acts of violence were of frequent occurrence.19
Again and again the danger of planters being “cut off by their
own negroes”20 is mentioned, both in the islands and on the
continent. This condition of vague dread and unrest not only
increased the severity of laws and strengthened the police system,
but was the prime motive back of all the earlier efforts
to check the further importation of slaves.

On the other hand, in New England and New York the
Negroes were merely house servants or farm hands, and were
treated neither better nor worse than servants in general in
those days. Between these two extremes, the system of slavery
varied from a mild serfdom in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
to an aristocratic caste system in Maryland and Virginia.

15

Chapter II

THE PLANTING COLONIES.

3. Character of these Colonies. The planting colonies are
those Southern settlements whose climate and character destined
them to be the chief theatre of North American slavery.
The early attitude of these communities toward the
slave-trade is therefore of peculiar interest; for their action
was of necessity largely decisive for the future of the trade
and for the institution in North America. Theirs was the
only soil, climate, and society suited to slavery; in the other
colonies, with few exceptions, the institution was by these
same factors doomed from the beginning. Hence, only
strong moral and political motives could in the planting colonies
overthrow or check a traffic so favored by the mother
country.

4. Restrictions in Georgia. In Georgia we have an example
of a community whose philanthropic founders sought to
impose upon it a code of morals higher than the colonists
wished. The settlers of Georgia were of even worse moral
fibre than their slave-trading and whiskey-using neighbors in
Carolina and Virginia; yet Oglethorpe and the London proprietors
prohibited from the beginning both the rum and the
slave traffic, refusing to “suffer slavery (which is against the
Gospel as well as the fundamental law of England) to be authorised
under our authority.”1 The trustees sought to win
the colonists over to their belief by telling them that money
could be better expended in transporting white men than
Negroes; that slaves would be a source of weakness to the
16colony; and that the “Produces designed to be raised in the
Colony would not require such Labour as to make Negroes
necessary for carrying them on.”2

This policy greatly displeased the colonists, who from 1735,
the date of the first law, to 1749, did not cease to clamor for
the repeal of the restrictions.3 As their English agent said,
they insisted that “In Spight of all Endeavours to disguise this
Point, it is as clear as Light itself, that Negroes are as essentially
necessary to the Cultivation of Georgia, as Axes, Hoes,
or any other Utensil of Agriculture.”4 Meantime, evasions
and infractions of the laws became frequent and notorious.
Negroes were brought across from Carolina and “hired” for
life.5 “Finally, purchases were openly made in Savannah from
African traders: some seizures were made by those who opposed
the principle, but as a majority of the magistrates were
favorable to the introduction of slaves into the province, legal
decisions were suspended from time to time, and a strong
disposition evidenced by the courts to evade the operation of
the law.”6 At last, in 1749, the colonists prevailed on the trustees
and the government, and the trade was thrown open under
careful restrictions, which limited importation, required a
registry and quarantine on all slaves brought in, and laid a
duty.7 It is probable, however, that these restrictions were
never enforced, and that the trade thus established continued
unchecked until the Revolution.

5. Restrictions in South Carolina.8 South Carolina had
the largest and most widely developed slave-trade of any of
17the continental colonies. This was owing to the character of
her settlers, her nearness to the West Indian slave marts, and
the early development of certain staple crops, such as rice,
which were adapted to slave labor.9 Moreover, this colony
suffered much less interference from the home government
than many other colonies; thus it is possible here to trace the
untrammeled development of slave-trade restrictions in a typical
planting community.

As early as 1698 the slave-trade to South Carolina had
reached such proportions that it was thought that “the great
number of negroes which of late have been imported into this
Collony may endanger the safety thereof.” The immigration
of white servants was therefore encouraged by a special law.10
Increase of immigration reduced this disproportion, but Negroes
continued to be imported in such numbers as to afford
considerable revenue from a moderate duty on them. About
the time when the Assiento was signed, the slave-trade so increased
that, scarcely a year after the consummation of that
momentous agreement, two heavy duty acts were passed, because
“the number of Negroes do extremely increase in this
Province, and through the afflicting providence of God, the
white persons do not proportionately multiply, by reason whereof,
the safety of the said Province is greatly endangered.”1118
The trade, however, by reason of the encouragement abroad
and of increased business activity in exporting naval stores at
home, suffered scarcely any check, although repeated acts, reciting
the danger incident to a “great importation of Negroes,”
were passed, laying high duties.12 Finally, in 1717, an
additional duty of £40,13 although due in depreciated currency,
succeeded so nearly in stopping the trade that, two
years later, all existing duties were repealed and one of £10
substituted.14 This continued during the time of resistance to
the proprietary government, but by 1734 the importation had
again reached large proportions. “We must therefore beg
leave,” the colonists write in that year, “to inform your Majesty,
that, amidst our other perilous circumstances, we are
subject to many intestine dangers from the great number of
negroes that are now among us, who amount at least to
twenty-two thousand persons, and are three to one of all your
Majesty’s white subjects in this province. Insurrections
against us have been often attempted.”15 In 1740 an insurrection
under a slave, Cato, at Stono, caused such widespread
alarm that a prohibitory duty of £100 was immediately laid.16
Importation was again checked; but in 1751 the colony sought
to devise a plan whereby the slightly restricted immigration
of Negroes should provide a fund to encourage the importation
of white servants, “to prevent the mischiefs that may be
attended by the great importation of negroes into this Province.”17
Many white servants were thus encouraged to settle in
the colony; but so much larger was the influx of black slaves
that the colony, in 1760, totally prohibited the slave-trade.
This act was promptly disallowed by the Privy Council and
19the governor reprimanded;18 but the colony declared that “an
importation of negroes, equal in number to what have been
imported of late years, may prove of the most dangerous consequence
in many respects to this Province, and the best way
to obviate such danger will be by imposing such an additional
duty upon them as may totally prevent the evils.”19 A prohibitive
duty of £100 was accordingly imposed in 1764.20 This
duty probably continued until the Revolution.

The war made a great change in the situation. It has been
computed by good judges that, between the years 1775 and
1783, the State of South Carolina lost twenty-five thousand
Negroes, by actual hostilities, plunder of the British, runaways,
etc. After the war the trade quickly revived, and considerable
revenue was raised from duty acts until 1787, when by
act and ordinance the slave-trade was totally prohibited.21 This
prohibition, by renewals from time to time, lasted until 1803.

6. Restrictions in North Carolina. In early times there
were few slaves in North Carolina;22 this fact, together with
the troubled and turbulent state of affairs during the early
colonial period, did not necessitate the adoption of any settled
policy toward slavery or the slave-trade. Later the slave-trade
to the colony increased; but there is no evidence of any
effort to restrict or in any way regulate it before 1786, when
it was declared that “the importation of slaves into this State
is productive of evil consequences and highly impolitic,”23 and
a prohibitive duty was laid on them.

7. Restrictions in Virginia.24 Next to South Carolina,
Virginia had probably the largest slave-trade. Her situation,
20however, differed considerably from that of her Southern
neighbor. The climate, the staple tobacco crop, and the society
of Virginia were favorable to a system of domestic slavery,
but one which tended to develop into a patriarchal serfdom
rather than into a slave-consuming industrial hierarchy. The
labor required by the tobacco crop was less unhealthy than
that connected with the rice crop, and the Virginians were,
perhaps, on a somewhat higher moral plane than the Carolinians.
There was consequently no such insatiable demand for
slaves in the larger colony. On the other hand, the power of
the Virginia executive was peculiarly strong, and it was not
possible here to thwart the slave-trade policy of the home
government as easily as elsewhere.

Considering all these circumstances, it is somewhat difficult
to determine just what was the attitude of the early Virginians
toward the slave-trade. There is evidence, however, to show
that although they desired the slave-trade, the rate at which
the Negroes were brought in soon alarmed them. In 1710 a
duty of £5 was laid on Negroes, but Governor Spotswood
“soon perceived that the laying so high a Duty on Negros was
intended to discourage the importation,” and vetoed the measure.25
No further restrictive legislation was attempted for
some years, but whether on account of the attitude of the
governor or the desire of the inhabitants, is not clear. With21
1723 begins a series of acts extending down to the Revolution,
which, so far as their contents can be ascertained, seem to
have been designed effectually to check the slave-trade. Some
of these acts, like those of 1723 and 1727, were almost immediately
disallowed.26 The Act of 1732 laid a duty of 5%, which
was continued until 1769,27 and all other duties were in addition
to this; so that by such cumulative duties the rate on
slaves reached 25% in 1755,28 and 35% at the time of Braddock’s
expedition.29 These acts were found “very burthensome,” “introductive
of many frauds,” and “very inconvenient,”30 and
were so far repealed that by 1761 the duty was only 15%. As
now the Burgesses became more powerful, two or more bills
proposing restrictive duties were passed, but disallowed.31 By
1772 the anti-slave-trade feeling had become considerably developed,
and the Burgesses petitioned the king, declaring that
“The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of
Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity,
and under its present encouragement, we have too much
reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty’s
American dominions…. Deeply impressed with these sentiments,
we most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all
those restraints on your Majesty’s governors of this colony,
which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very
pernicious a commerce.”32

Nothing further appears to have been done before the war.
When, in 1776, the delegates adopted a Frame of Government,
it was charged in this document that the king had perverted
his high office into a “detestable and insupportable
tyranny, by … prompting our negroes to rise in arms
among us, those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of
his negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude by
law.”33 Two years later, in 1778, an “Act to prevent the further
22importation of Slaves” stopped definitively the legal slave-trade
to Virginia.34

8. Restrictions in Maryland.35 Not until the impulse of the
Assiento had been felt in America, did Maryland make any
attempt to restrain a trade from which she had long enjoyed
a comfortable revenue. The Act of 1717, laying a duty of 40s.,36
may have been a mild restrictive measure. The duties were
slowly increased to 50s. in 1754,37 and £4. in 1763.38 In 1771 a
prohibitive duty of £9 was laid;39 and in 1783, after the war,
all importation by sea was stopped and illegally imported Negroes
were freed.40

Compared with the trade to Virginia and the Carolinas,
the slave-trade to Maryland was small, and seems at no time
to have reached proportions which alarmed the inhabitants.
It was regulated to the economic demand by a slowly increasing
tariff, and finally, after 1769, had nearly ceased of
its own accord before the restrictive legislation of Revolutionary
times.41 Probably the proximity of Maryland to Vir23ginia
made an independent slave-trade less necessary to her.

9. General Character of these Restrictions. We find in
the planting colonies all degrees of advocacy of the trade,
from the passiveness of Maryland to the clamor of Georgia.
Opposition to the trade did not appear in Georgia, was based
almost solely on political fear of insurrection in Carolina, and
sprang largely from the same motive in Virginia, mingled
with some moral repugnance. As a whole, it may be said that
whatever opposition to the slave-trade there was in the planting
colonies was based principally on the political fear of
insurrection.

24

Chapter III

THE FARMING COLONIES.

10. Character of these Colonies. The colonies of this group,
occupying the central portion of the English possessions,
comprise those communities where, on account of climate,
physical characteristics, and circumstances of settlement, slavery
as an institution found but a narrow field for development.
The climate was generally rather cool for the newly
imported slaves, the soil was best suited to crops to which
slave labor was poorly adapted, and the training and habits of
the great body of settlers offered little chance for the growth
of a slave system. These conditions varied, of course, in different
colonies; but the general statement applies to all. These
communities of small farmers and traders derived whatever
opposition they had to the slave-trade from three sorts of
motives,—economic, political, and moral. First, the importation
of slaves did not pay, except to supply a moderate demand
for household servants. Secondly, these colonies, as well as
those in the South, had a wholesome political fear of a large
servile population. Thirdly, the settlers of many of these colonies
were of sterner moral fibre than the Southern cavaliers
and adventurers, and, in the absence of great counteracting
motives, were more easily led to oppose the institution and
the trade. Finally, it must be noted that these colonies did not
so generally regard themselves as temporary commercial investments
as did Virginia and Carolina. Intending to found
permanent States, these settlers from the first more carefully
studied the ultimate interests of those States.

11. The Dutch Slave-Trade. The Dutch seem to have commenced
the slave-trade to the American continent, the Middle
colonies and some of the Southern receiving supplies from
25them. John Rolfe relates that the last of August, 1619, there
came to Virginia “a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty
Negars.”1 This was probably one of the ships of the numerous
private Dutch trading-companies which early entered into
and developed the lucrative African slave-trade. Ships sailed
from Holland to Africa, got slaves in exchange for their
goods, carried the slaves to the West Indies or Brazil, and
returned home laden with sugar.2 Through the enterprise of
one of these trading-companies the settlement of New Amsterdam
was begun, in 1614. In 1621 the private companies
trading in the West were all merged into the Dutch West India
Company, and given a monopoly of American trade. This
company was very active, sending in four years 15,430 Negroes
to Brazil,3 carrying on war with Spain, supplying even
the English plantations,4 and gradually becoming the great
slave carrier of the day.

The commercial supremacy of the Dutch early excited the
envy and emulation of the English. The Navigation Ordinance
of 1651 was aimed at them, and two wars were necessary
to wrest the slave-trade from them and place it in the hands
of the English. The final terms of peace among other things
surrendered New Netherland to England, and opened the
way for England to become henceforth the world’s greatest
slave-trader. Although the Dutch had thus commenced the
continental slave-trade, they had not actually furnished a very
large number of slaves to the English colonies outside the
West Indies. A small trade had, by 1698, brought a few thousand
to New York, and still fewer to New Jersey.5 It was left
to the English, with their strong policy in its favor, to develop
this trade.

12. Restrictions in New York.6 The early ordinances of
26the Dutch, laying duties, generally of ten per cent, on slaves,
probably proved burdensome to the trade, although this was
not intentional.7 The Biblical prohibition of slavery and the
slave-trade, copied from New England codes into the Duke
of York’s Laws, had no practical application,8 and the trade
continued to be encouraged in the governors’ instructions. In
1709 a duty of £3 was laid on Negroes from elsewhere than
Africa.9 This was aimed at West India slaves, and was prohibitive.
By 1716 the duty on all slaves was £1 12½s., which was
probably a mere revenue figure.10 In 1728 a duty of 40s. was
laid, to be continued until 1737.11 It proved restrictive, however,
and on the “humble petition of the Merchants and27
Traders of the City of Bristol” was disallowed in 1735, as
“greatly prejudicial to the Trade and Navigation of this Kingdom.”12
Governor Cosby was also reminded that no duties on
slaves payable by the importer were to be laid. Later, in 1753,
the 40s. duty was restored, but under the increased trade of
those days was not felt.13 No further restrictions seem to have
been attempted until 1785, when the sale of slaves in the State
was forbidden.14

The chief element of restriction in this colony appears to
have been the shrewd business sense of the traders, who
never flooded the slave market, but kept a supply sufficient
for the slowly growing demand. Between 1701 and 1726 only
about 2,375 slaves were imported, and in 1774 the total slave
population amounted to 21,149.15 No restriction was ever
put by New York on participation in the trade outside the
colony, and in spite of national laws New York merchants
continued to be engaged in this traffic even down to the
Civil War.16

Vermont, who withdrew from New York in 1777, in her
28first Constitution17 declared slavery illegal, and in 1786 stopped
by law the sale and transportation of slaves within her boundaries.18

13. Restrictions in Pennsylvania and Delaware.19 One of
the first American protests against the slave-trade came from
certain German Friends, in 1688, at a Weekly Meeting held in
Germantown, Pennsylvania. “These are the reasons,” wrote
“Garret henderich, derick up de graeff, Francis daniell Pastorius,
and Abraham up Den graef,” “why we are against the
traffick of men-body, as followeth: Is there any that would be
done or handled at this manner?… Now, tho they are
black, we cannot conceive there is more liberty to have them
slaves, as it is to have other white ones. There is a saying, that
we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves;
making no difference of what generation, descent or colour
they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who
29buy or purchase them, are they not all alike?”20 This little
leaven helped slowly to work a revolution in the attitude of
this great sect toward slavery and the slave-trade. The Yearly
Meeting at first postponed the matter, “It having so General
a Relation to many other Parts.”21 Eventually, however, in
1696, the Yearly Meeting advised “That Friends be careful not
to encourage the bringing in of any more Negroes.”22 This
advice was repeated in stronger terms for a quarter-century,23
and by that time Sandiford, Benezet, Lay, and Woolman had
begun their crusade. In 1754 the Friends took a step farther
and made the purchase of slaves a matter of discipline.24 Four
years later the Yearly Meeting expressed itself clearly as
“against every branch of this practice,” and declared that if
“any professing with us should persist to vindicate it, and be
concerned in importing, selling or purchasing slaves, the respective
Monthly Meetings to which they belong should
manifest their disunion with such persons.”25 Further, manumission
was recommended, and in 1776 made compulsory.26
The effect of this attitude of the Friends was early manifested
in the legislation of all the colonies where the sect was influential,
and particularly in Pennsylvania.

One of the first duty acts (1710) laid a restrictive duty of
40s. on slaves, and was eventually disallowed.27 In 1712 William
Southeby petitioned the Assembly totally to abolish slavery.
This the Assembly naturally refused to attempt; but the
same year, in response to another petition “signed by many
hands,” they passed an “Act to prevent the Importation of
Negroes and Indians,”28—the first enactment of its kind in30
America. This act was inspired largely by the general fear of
insurrection which succeeded the “Negro-plot” of 1712 in
New York. It declared: “Whereas, divers Plots and Insurrections
have frequently happened, not only in the Islands but
on the Main Land of America, by Negroes, which have been
carried on so far that several of the inhabitants have been barbarously
Murthered, an Instance whereof we have lately had
in our Neighboring Colony of New York,”29 etc. It then proceeded
to lay a prohibitive duty of £20 on all slaves imported.
These acts were quickly disposed of in England. Three duty
acts affecting Negroes, including the prohibitory act, were in
1713 disallowed, and it was directed that “the Dep^ty Gov^r
Council and Assembly of Pensilvania, be & they are hereby
Strictly Enjoyned & required not to permit the said Laws
… to be from henceforward put in Execution.”30 The Assembly
repealed these laws, but in 1715 passed another laying
a duty of £5, which was also eventually disallowed.31 Other
acts, the provisions of which are not clear, were passed in 1720
and 1722,32 and in 1725–1726 the duty on Negroes was raised
to the restrictive figure of £10.33 This duty, for some reason
not apparent, was lowered to £2 in 1729,34 but restored again
in 1761.35 A struggle occurred over this last measure, the
Friends petitioning for it, and the Philadelphia merchants
against it, declaring that “We, the subscribers, ever desirous
31to extend the Trade of this Province, have seen, for some time
past, the many inconveniencys the Inhabitants have suffer’d
for want of Labourers and artificers, … have for some time
encouraged the importation of Negroes;” they prayed therefore
at least for a delay in passing the measure.36 The law,
nevertheless, after much debate and altercation with the governor,
finally passed.

These repeated acts nearly stopped the trade, and the manumission
or sale of Negroes by the Friends decreased the
number of slaves in the province. The rising spirit of independence
enabled the colony, in 1773, to restore the prohibitive
duty of £20 and make it perpetual.37 After the Revolution unpaid
duties on slaves were collected and the slaves registered,38
and in 1780 an “Act for the gradual Abolition of Slavery” was
passed.39 As there were probably at no time before the war
more than 11,000 slaves in Pennsylvania,40 the task thus accomplished
was not so formidable as in many other States. As it
was, participation in the slave-trade outside the colony was
not prohibited until 1788.41

It seems probable that in the original Swedish settlements
along the Delaware slavery was prohibited.42 This measure
had, however, little practical effect; for as soon as the Dutch
got control the slave-trade was opened, although, as it appears,
to no large extent. After the fall of the Dutch Delaware
came into English hands. Not until 1775 do we find any legislation
on the slave-trade. In that year the colony attempted
32to prohibit the importation of slaves, but the governor vetoed
the bill.43 Finally, in 1776 by the Constitution, and in 1787 by
law, importation and exportation were both prohibited.44

14. Restrictions in New Jersey.45 Although the freeholders
of West New Jersey declared, in 1676, that “all and every Person
and Persons Inhabiting the said Province, shall, as far as
in us lies, be free from Oppression and Slavery,”46 yet Negro
slaves are early found in the colony.47 The first restrictive measure
was passed, after considerable friction between the
Council and the House, in 1713; it laid a duty of £10, currency.48
Governor Hunter explained to the Board of Trade
that the bill was “calculated to Encourage the Importation of
white Servants for the better Peopeling that Country.”49 How
long this act continued does not appear; probably, not long.
No further legislation was enacted until 1762 or 1763, when a
prohibitive duty was laid on account of “the inconvenience
the Province is exposed to in lying open to the free importation
of Negros, when the Provinces on each side have laid
duties on them.”50 The Board of Trade declared that while
they did not object to “the Policy of imposing a reasonable
duty,” they could not assent to this, and the act was disallowed.51
The Act of 1769 evaded the technical objection of the
Board of Trade, and laid a duty of £15 on the first purchasers
of Negroes, because, as the act declared, “Duties on the Im33portation
of Negroes in several of the neighbouring Colonies
hath, on Experience, been found beneficial in the Introduction
of sober, industrious Foreigners.”52 In 1774 a bill which,
according to the report of the Council to Governor Morris,
“plainly intended an entire Prohibition of all Slaves being imported
from foreign Parts,” was thrown out by the Council.53
Importation was finally prohibited in 1786.54

15. General Character of these Restrictions. The main
difference in motive between the restrictions which the planting
and the farming colonies put on the African slave-trade,
lay in the fact that the former limited it mainly from fear of
insurrection, the latter mainly because it did not pay. Naturally,
the latter motive worked itself out with much less legislation
than the former; for this reason, and because they
held a smaller number of slaves, most of these colonies have
fewer actual statutes than the Southern colonies. In Pennsylvania
alone did this general economic revolt against the trade
acquire a distinct moral tinge. Although even here the institution
was naturally doomed, yet the clear moral insight of
the Quakers checked the trade much earlier than would otherwise
have happened. We may say, then, that the farming
colonies checked the slave-trade primarily from economic
motives.

34

Chapter IV

THE TRADING COLONIES.

16. Character of these Colonies. The rigorous climate of
New England, the character of her settlers, and their pronounced
political views gave slavery an even slighter basis
here than in the Middle colonies. The significance of New
England in the African slave-trade does not therefore lie in
the fact that she early discountenanced the system of slavery
and stopped importation; but rather in the fact that her citizens,
being the traders of the New World, early took part in
the carrying slave-trade and furnished slaves to the other colonies.
An inquiry, therefore, into the efforts of the New England
colonies to suppress the slave-trade would fall naturally
into two parts: first, and chiefly, an investigation of the efforts
to stop the participation of citizens in the carrying slave-trade;
secondly, an examination of the efforts made to banish the
slave-trade from New England soil.

17. New England and the Slave-Trade. Vessels from Massachusetts,1
Rhode Island,2 Connecticut,3 and, to a less extent,
from New Hampshire,4 were early and largely engaged
in the carrying slave-trade. “We know,” said Thomas Pemberton
in 1795, “that a large trade to Guinea was carried on for
many years by the citizens of Massachusetts Colony, who
were the proprietors of the vessels and their cargoes, out and
35home. Some of the slaves purchased in Guinea, and I suppose
the greatest part of them, were sold in the West Indies.”5 Dr.
John Eliot asserted that “it made a considerable branch of our
commerce…. It declined very little till the Revolution.”6
Yet the trade of this colony was said not to equal that of
Rhode Island. Newport was the mart for slaves offered for
sale in the North, and a point of reshipment for all slaves. It
was principally this trade that raised Newport to her commercial
importance in the eighteenth century.7 Connecticut, too,
was an important slave-trader, sending large numbers of
horses and other commodities to the West Indies in exchange
for slaves, and selling the slaves in other colonies.

This trade formed a perfect circle. Owners of slavers carried
slaves to South Carolina, and brought home naval stores for
their ship-building; or to the West Indies, and brought home
molasses; or to other colonies, and brought home hogsheads.
The molasses was made into the highly prized New England
rum, and shipped in these hogsheads to Africa for more
slaves.8 Thus, the rum-distilling industry indicates to some
extent the activity of New England in the slave-trade. In May,
1752, one Captain Freeman found so many slavers fitting out
that, in spite of the large importations of molasses, he could
get no rum for his vessel.9 In Newport alone twenty-two stills
36were at one time running continuously;10 and Massachusetts
annually distilled 15,000 hogsheads of molasses into this “chief
manufacture.”11

Turning now to restrictive measures, we must first note the
measures of the slave-consuming colonies which tended to
limit the trade. These measures, however, came comparatively
late, were enforced with varying degrees of efficiency, and did
not seriously affect the slave-trade before the Revolution. The
moral sentiment of New England put some check upon the
trade. Although in earlier times the most respectable people
took ventures in slave-trading voyages, yet there gradually
arose a moral sentiment which tended to make the business
somewhat disreputable.12 In the line, however, of definite legal
enactments to stop New England citizens from carrying slaves
from Africa to any place in the world, there were, before the
Revolution, none. Indeed, not until the years 1787–1788 was
slave-trading in itself an indictable offence in any New England
State.

The particular situation in each colony, and the efforts to
restrict the small importing slave-trade of New England, can
best be studied in a separate view of each community.

18. Restrictions in New Hampshire. The statistics of slavery
in New Hampshire show how weak an institution it always was
in that colony.13 Consequently, when the usual instructions
were sent to Governor Wentworth as to the encouragement he
must give to the slave-trade, the House replied: “We have considered
his Maj^ties Instruction relating to an Impost on Negroes
& Felons, to which this House answers, that there never was
any duties laid on either, by this Goverm^t, and so few bro’t in
37that it would not be worth the Publick notice, so as to make an
act concerning them.”14 This remained true for the whole
history of the colony. Importation was never stopped by actual
enactment, but was eventually declared contrary to the Constitution
of 1784.15 The participation of citizens in the trade
appears never to have been forbidden.

19. Restrictions in Massachusetts. The early Biblical codes
of Massachusetts confined slavery to “lawfull Captives taken
in iust warres, & such strangers as willingly selle themselves
or are sold to us.”16 The stern Puritanism of early days endeavored
to carry this out literally, and consequently when a
certain Captain Smith, about 1640, attacked an African village
and brought some of the unoffending natives home, he was
promptly arrested. Eventually, the General Court ordered the
Negroes sent home at the colony’s expense, “conceiving
themselues bound by y^e first oportunity to bear witnes against
y^e haynos & crying sinn of manstealing, as also to P’scribe
such timely redresse for what is past, & such a law for y^e
future as may sufficiently deterr all oth^rs belonging to us to
have to do in such vile & most odious courses, iustly abhored
of all good & iust men.”17

The temptation of trade slowly forced the colony from this
high moral ground. New England ships were early found in
the West Indian slave-trade, and the more the carrying trade
developed, the more did the profits of this branch of it attract
Puritan captains. By the beginning of the eighteenth century
the slave-trade was openly recognized as legitimate commerce;
cargoes came regularly to Boston, and “The merchants
of Boston quoted negroes, like any other merchandise demanded
by their correspondents.”18 At the same time, the Puritan
conscience began to rebel against the growth of actual
slavery on New England soil. It was a much less violent
wrenching of moral ideas of right and wrong to allow Mas38sachusetts
men to carry slaves to South Carolina than to allow
cargoes to come into Boston, and become slaves in Massachusetts.
Early in the eighteenth century, therefore, opposition
arose to the further importation of Negroes, and in 1705 an
act “for the Better Preventing of a Spurious and Mixt Issue,”
laid a restrictive duty of £4 on all slaves imported.19 One provision
of this act plainly illustrates the attitude of Massachusetts:
like the acts of many of the New England colonies, it
allowed a rebate of the whole duty on re-exportation. The
harbors of New England were thus offered as a free exchange-mart
for slavers. All the duty acts of the Southern and Middle
colonies allowed a rebate of one-half or three-fourths of the
duty on the re-exportation of the slave, thus laying a small tax
on even temporary importation.

The Act of 1705 was evaded, but it was not amended until
1728, when the penalty for evasion was raised to £100.20 The
act remained in force, except possibly for one period of four
years, until 1749. Meantime the movement against importation
grew. A bill “for preventing the Importation of Slaves
into this Province” was introduced in the Legislature in 1767,
but after strong opposition and disagreement between House
and Council it was dropped.21 In 1771 the struggle was renewed.
A similar bill passed, but was vetoed by Governor
Hutchinson.22 The imminent war and the discussions incident
to it had now more and more aroused public opinion, and
there were repeated attempts to gain executive consent to a
prohibitory law. In 1774 such a bill was twice passed, but
never received assent.23

39

The new Revolutionary government first met the subject in
the case of two Negroes captured on the high seas, who were
advertised for sale at Salem. A resolution was introduced into
the Legislature, directing the release of the Negroes, and declaring
“That the selling and enslaving the human species is a
direct violation of the natural rights alike vested in all men by
their Creator, and utterly inconsistent with the avowed principles
on which this, and the other United States, have carried
their struggle for liberty even to the last appeal.” To this the
Council would not consent; and the resolution, as finally
passed, merely forbade the sale or ill-treatment of the Negroes.24
Committees on the slavery question were appointed
in 1776 and 1777,25 and although a letter to Congress on the
matter, and a bill for the abolition of slavery were reported,
no decisive action was taken.

All such efforts were finally discontinued, as the system was
already practically extinct in Massachusetts and the custom of
importation had nearly ceased. Slavery was eventually declared
by judicial decision to have been abolished.26 The first
step toward stopping the participation of Massachusetts citizens
in the slave-trade outside the State was taken in 1785,
when a committee of inquiry was appointed by the Legislature.27
No act was, however, passed until 1788, when participation
in the trade was prohibited, on pain of £50 forfeit for
every slave and £200 for every ship engaged.28

40

20. Restrictions in Rhode Island. In 1652 Rhode Island
passed a law designed to prohibit life slavery in the colony. It
declared that “Whereas, there is a common course practised
amongst English men to buy negers, to that end they may
have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of
such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke
mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwise,
to serve any man or his assighnes longer than ten yeares,
or untill they come to bee twentie four yeares of age, if they
bee taken in under fourteen, from the time of their cominge
within the liberties of this Collonie. And at the end or terme
of ten yeares to sett them free, as the manner is with the
English servants. And that man that will not let them goe
free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end that they
may bee enslaved to others for a long time, hee or they shall
forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds.”29

This law was for a time enforced,30 but by the beginning of
the eighteenth century it had either been repealed or become
a dead letter; for the Act of 1708 recognized perpetual slavery,
and laid an impost of £3 on Negroes imported.31 This duty
was really a tax on the transport trade, and produced a steady
41income for twenty years.32 From the year 1700 on, the citizens
of this State engaged more and more in the carrying trade,
until Rhode Island became the greatest slave-trader in America.
Although she did not import many slaves for her own
use, she became the clearing-house for the trade of other colonies.
Governor Cranston, as early as 1708, reported that between
1698 and 1708 one hundred and three vessels were built
in the State, all of which were trading to the West Indies and
the Southern colonies.33 They took out lumber and brought
back molasses, in most cases making a slave voyage in between.
From this, the trade grew. Samuel Hopkins, about
1770, was shocked at the state of the trade: more than thirty
distilleries were running in the colony, and one hundred and
fifty vessels were in the slave-trade.34 “Rhode Island,” said he,
“has been more deeply interested in the slave-trade, and has
enslaved more Africans than any other colony in New England.”
Later, in 1787, he wrote: “The inhabitants of Rhode
Island, especially those of Newport, have had by far the
greater share in this traffic, of all these United States. This
trade in human species has been the first wheel of commerce
in Newport, on which every other movement in business has
chiefly depended. That town has been built up, and flourished
in times past, at the expense of the blood, the liberty, and
happiness of the poor Africans; and the inhabitants have lived
on this, and by it have gotten most of their wealth and
riches.”35

The Act of 1708 was poorly enforced. The “good intentions”
of its framers “were wholly frustrated” by the clandestine
“hiding and conveying said negroes out of the town
[Newport] into the country, where they lie concealed.”36 The
act was accordingly strengthened by the Acts of 1712 and 1715,
and made to apply to importations by land as well as by sea.37
The Act of 1715, however, favored the trade by admitting42
African Negroes free of duty. The chaotic state of Rhode Island
did not allow England often to review her legislation;
but as soon as the Act of 1712 came to notice it was disallowed,
and accordingly repealed in 1732.38 Whether the Act of
1715 remained, or whether any other duty act was passed, is
not clear.

While the foreign trade was flourishing, the influence of
the Friends and of other causes eventually led to a movement
against slavery as a local institution. Abolition societies
multiplied, and in 1770 an abolition bill was ordered by the
Assembly, but it was never passed.39 Four years later the city
of Providence resolved that “as personal liberty is an essential
part of the natural rights of mankind,” the importation
of slaves and the system of slavery should cease in the colony.40
This movement finally resulted, in 1774, in an act “prohibiting
the importation of Negroes into this Colony,”—a
law which curiously illustrated the attitude of Rhode Island
toward the slave-trade. The preamble of the act declared:
“Whereas, the inhabitants of America are generally engaged
in the preservation of their own rights and liberties, among
which, that of personal freedom must be considered as the
greatest; as those who are desirous of enjoying all the advantages
of liberty themselves, should be willing to extend personal
liberty to others;—Therefore,” etc. The statute then
proceeded to enact “that for the future, no negro or mulatto
slave shall be brought into this colony; and in case any slave
shall hereafter be brought in, he or she shall be, and are
hereby, rendered immediately free….” The logical ending
of such an act would have been a clause prohibiting the participation
of Rhode Island citizens in the slave-trade. Not
only was such a clause omitted, but the following was inserted
instead: “Provided, also, that nothing in this act shall
extend, or be deemed to extend, to any negro or mulatto
slave brought from the coast of Africa, into the West Indies,
43on board any vessel belonging to this colony, and which negro
or mulatto slave could not be disposed of in the West
Indies, but shall be brought into this colony. Provided, that
the owner of such negro or mulatto slave give bond …
that such negro or mulatto slave shall be exported out of the
colony, within one year from the date of such bond; if such
negro or mulatto be alive, and in a condition to be removed.”41

In 1779 an act to prevent the sale of slaves out of the State
was passed,42 and in 1784, an act gradually to abolish slavery.43
Not until 1787 did an act pass to forbid participation in the
slave-trade. This law laid a penalty of £100 for every slave
transported and £1000 for every vessel so engaged.44

21. Restrictions in Connecticut. Connecticut, in common
with the other colonies of this section, had a trade for many
years with the West Indian slave markets; and though this
trade was much smaller than that of the neighboring colonies,
yet many of her citizens were engaged in it. A map of
Middletown at the time of the Revolution gives, among one
hundred families, three slave captains and “three notables”
designated as “slave-dealers.”45

The actual importation was small,46 and almost entirely un44restricted
before the Revolution, save by a few light, general
duty acts. In 1774 the further importation of slaves was prohibited,
because “the increase of slaves in this Colony is injurious
to the poor and inconvenient.” The law prohibited
importation under any pretext by a penalty of £100 per slave.47
This was re-enacted in 1784, and provisions were made for the
abolition of slavery.48 In 1788 participation in the trade was
forbidden, and the penalty placed at £50 for each slave and
£500 for each ship engaged.49

22. General Character of these Restrictions. Enough has
already been said to show, in the main, the character of the opposition
to the slave-trade in New England. The system of slavery
had, on this soil and amid these surroundings, no economic
justification, and the small number of Negroes here furnished
no political arguments against them. The opposition to the importation
was therefore from the first based solely on moral
grounds, with some social arguments. As to the carrying trade,
however, the case was different. Here, too, a feeble moral opposition
was early aroused, but it was swept away by the immense
economic advantages of the slave traffic to a thrifty
seafaring community of traders. This trade no moral suasion,
not even the strong “Liberty” cry of the Revolution, was able
wholly to suppress, until the closing of the West Indian and
Southern markets cut off the demand for slaves.

45

Chapter V

THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION. 1774–1787.

23. The Situation in 1774. In the individual efforts of the
various colonies to suppress the African slave-trade there may
be traced certain general movements. First, from 1638 to 1664,
there was a tendency to take a high moral stand against the
traffic. This is illustrated in the laws of New England, in the
plans for the settlement of Delaware and, later, that of Georgia,
and in the protest of the German Friends. The second
period, from about 1664 to 1760, has no general unity, but is
marked by statutes laying duties varying in design from encouragement
to absolute prohibition, by some cases of moral
opposition, and by the slow but steady growth of a spirit
unfavorable to the long continuance of the trade. The last
colonial period, from about 1760 to 1787, is one of pronounced
effort to regulate, limit, or totally prohibit the
traffic. Beside these general movements, there are many waves
of legislation, easily distinguishable, which rolled over several
or all of the colonies at various times, such as the series of
high duties following the Assiento, and the acts inspired by
various Negro “plots.”

Notwithstanding this, the laws of the colonies before 1774
had no national unity, the peculiar circumstances of each colony
determining its legislation. With the outbreak of the Revolution
came unison in action with regard to the slave-trade,
as with regard to other matters, which may justly be called
national. It was, of course, a critical period,—a period when,
in the rapid upheaval of a few years, the complicated and diverse
forces of decades meet, combine, act, and react, until
46the resultant seems almost the work of chance. In the settlement
of the fate of slavery and the slave-trade, however, the
real crisis came in the calm that succeeded the storm, in that
day when, in the opinion of most men, the question seemed
already settled. And indeed it needed an exceptionally clear
and discerning mind, in 1787, to deny that slavery and the
slave-trade in the United States of America were doomed to
early annihilation. It seemed certainly a legitimate deduction
from the history of the preceding century to conclude that, as
the system had risen, flourished, and fallen in Massachusetts,
New York, and Pennsylvania, and as South Carolina, Virginia,
and Maryland were apparently following in the same
legislative path, the next generation would in all probability
witness the last throes of the system on our soil.

To be sure, the problem had its uncertain quantities. The
motives of the law-makers in South Carolina and Pennsylvania
were dangerously different; the century of industrial
expansion was slowly dawning and awakening that vast
economic revolution in which American slavery was to play
so prominent and fatal a rôle; and, finally, there were already
in the South faint signs of a changing moral attitude toward
slavery, which would no longer regard the system as a temporary
makeshift, but rather as a permanent though perhaps
unfortunate necessity. With regard to the slave-trade, however,
there appeared to be substantial unity of opinion; and
there were, in 1787, few things to indicate that a cargo of five
hundred African slaves would openly be landed in Georgia in
1860.

24. The Condition of the Slave-Trade. In 1760 England,
the chief slave-trading nation, was sending on an average to
Africa 163 ships annually, with a tonnage of 18,000 tons, carrying
exports to the value of £163,818. Only about twenty of
these ships regularly returned to England. Most of them carried
slaves to the West Indies, and returned laden with sugar
and other products. Thus may be formed some idea of the
size and importance of the slave-trade at that time, although
for a complete view we must add to this the trade under the
French, Portuguese, Dutch, and Americans. The trade fell
off somewhat toward 1770, but was flourishing again when
the Revolution brought a sharp and serious check upon it,
47bringing down the number of English slavers, clearing, from
167 in 1774 to 28 in 1779, and the tonnage from 17,218 to 3,475
tons. After the war the trade gradually recovered, and by 1786
had reached nearly its former extent. In 1783 the British West
Indies received 16,208 Negroes from Africa, and by 1787 the
importation had increased to 21,023. In this latter year it was
estimated that the British were taking annually from Africa
38,000 slaves; the French, 20,000; the Portuguese, 10,000; the
Dutch and Danes, 6,000; a total of 74,000. Manchester alone
sent £180,000 annually in goods to Africa in exchange for
Negroes.1

25. The Slave-Trade and the “Association.” At the outbreak
of the Revolution six main reasons, some of which were
old and of slow growth, others peculiar to the abnormal situation
of that time, led to concerted action against the slave-trade.
The first reason was the economic failure of slavery in
the Middle and Eastern colonies; this gave rise to the presumption
that like failure awaited the institution in the South.
Secondly, the new philosophy of “Freedom” and the “Rights
of man,” which formed the corner-stone of the Revolution,
made the dullest realize that, at the very least, the slave-trade
and a struggle for “liberty” were not consistent. Thirdly, the
old fear of slave insurrections, which had long played so
prominent a part in legislation, now gained new power from
the imminence of war and from the well-founded fear that
the British might incite servile uprisings. Fourthly, nearly all
the American slave markets were, in 1774–1775, overstocked
with slaves, and consequently many of the strongest partisans
of the system were “bulls” on the market, and desired to raise
the value of their slaves by at least a temporary stoppage of
the trade. Fifthly, since the vested interests of the slave-trading
merchants were liable to be swept away by the opening
of hostilities, and since the price of slaves was low,2 there was
from this quarter little active opposition to a cessation of the
trade for a season. Finally, it was long a favorite belief of the
supporters of the Revolution that, as English exploitation of
48colonial resources had caused the quarrel, the best weapon to
bring England to terms was the economic expedient of stopping
all commercial intercourse with her. Since, then, the
slave-trade had ever formed an important part of her colonial
traffic, it was one of the first branches of commerce which
occurred to the colonists as especially suited to their ends.3

Such were the complicated moral, political, and economic
motives which underlay the first national action against the
slave-trade. This action was taken by the “Association,” a
union of the colonies entered into to enforce the policy of
stopping commercial intercourse with England. The movement
was not a great moral protest against an iniquitous
traffic; although it had undoubtedly a strong moral backing,
it was primarily a temporary war measure.

26. The Action of the Colonies. The earlier and largely
abortive attempts to form non-intercourse associations generally
did not mention slaves specifically, although the Virginia
House of Burgesses, May 11, 1769, recommended to
merchants and traders, among other things, to agree, “That
they will not import any slaves, or purchase any imported
after the first day of November next, until the said acts are
repealed.”4 Later, in 1774, when a Faneuil Hall meeting
started the first successful national attempt at non-intercourse,
the slave-trade, being at the time especially flourishing, received
more attention. Even then slaves were specifically mentioned
in the resolutions of but three States. Rhode Island
recommended a stoppage of “all trade with Great Britain, Ireland,
Africa and the West Indies.”5 North Carolina, in August,
1774, resolved in convention “That we will not import
any slave or slaves, or purchase any slave or slaves, imported
or brought into this Province by others, from any part of the
world, after the first day of November next.”6 Virginia gave
the slave-trade especial prominence, and was in reality the
49leading spirit to force her views on the Continental Congress.
The county conventions of that colony first took up the subject.
Fairfax County thought “that during our present difficulties
and distress, no slaves ought to be imported,” and
said: “We take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest
wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such a wicked,
cruel, and unnatural trade.”7 Prince George and Nansemond
Counties resolved “That the African trade is injurious to this
Colony, obstructs the population of it by freemen, prevents
manufacturers and other useful emigrants from Europe from
settling amongst us, and occasions an annual increase of the
balance of trade against this Colony.”8 The Virginia colonial
convention, August, 1774, also declared: “We will neither ourselves
import, nor purchase any slave or slaves imported by
any other person, after the first day of November next, either
from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place.”9

In South Carolina, at the convention July 6, 1774, decided
opposition to the non-importation scheme was manifested,
though how much this was due to the slave-trade interest is
not certain. Many of the delegates wished at least to limit the
powers of their representatives, and the Charleston Chamber
of Commerce flatly opposed the plan of an “Association.”
Finally, however, delegates with full powers were sent to
Congress. The arguments leading to this step were not in all
cases on the score of patriotism; a Charleston manifesto argued:
“The planters are greatly in arrears to the merchants; a
stoppage of importation would give them all an opportunity
to extricate themselves from debt. The merchants would have
time to settle their accounts, and be ready with the return of
liberty to renew trade.”10

27. The Action of the Continental Congress. The first
Continental Congress met September 5, 1774, and on September
22 recommended merchants to send no more orders for
foreign goods.11 On September 27 “Mr. Lee made a motion
for a non-importation,” and it was unanimously resolved to
50import no goods from Great Britain after December 1, 1774.12
Afterward, Ireland and the West Indies were also included,
and a committee consisting of Low of New York, Mifflin of
Pennsylvania, Lee of Virginia, and Johnson of Connecticut
were appointed “to bring in a Plan for carrying into Effect
the Non-importation, Non-consumption, and Non-exportation
resolved on.”13 The next move was to instruct this committee
to include in the proscribed articles, among other
things, “Molasses, Coffee or Piemento from the British Plantations
or from Dominica,”—a motion which cut deep into
the slave-trade circle of commerce, and aroused some opposition.
“Will, can, the people bear a total interruption of the
West India trade?” asked Low of New York; “Can they live
without rum, sugar, and molasses? Will not this impatience
and vexation defeat the measure?”14

The committee finally reported, October 12, 1774, and after
three days’ discussion and amendment the proposal passed.
This document, after a recital of grievances, declared that, in
the opinion of the colonists, a non-importation agreement
would best secure redress; goods from Great Britain, Ireland,
the East and West Indies, and Dominica were excluded; and
it was resolved that “We will neither import, nor purchase any
Slave imported after the First Day of December next; after
which Time, we will wholly discontinue the Slave Trade, and
will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our
Vessels, nor sell our Commodities or Manufactures to those
who are concerned in it.”15

Strong and straightforward as this resolution was, time unfortunately
proved that it meant very little. Two years later,
in this same Congress, a decided opposition was manifested
to branding the slave-trade as inhuman, and it was thirteen
years before South Carolina stopped the slave-trade or Massachusetts
prohibited her citizens from engaging in it. The
passing of so strong a resolution must be explained by the
motives before given, by the character of the drafting com51mittee,
by the desire of America in this crisis to appear well
before the world, and by the natural moral enthusiasm
aroused by the imminence of a great national struggle.

28. Reception of the Slave-Trade Resolution. The unanimity
with which the colonists received this “Association” is
not perhaps as remarkable as the almost entire absence of
comment on the radical slave-trade clause. A Connecticut
town-meeting in December, 1774, noticed “with singular
pleasure … the second Article of the Association, in which
it is agreed to import no more Negro Slaves.”16 This comment
appears to have been almost the only one. There were in various
places some evidences of disapproval; but only in the
State of Georgia was this widespread and determined, and
based mainly on the slave-trade clause.17 This opposition delayed
the ratification meeting until January 18, 1775, and then
delegates from but five of the twelve parishes appeared, and
many of these had strong instructions against the approval of
the plan. Before this meeting could act, the governor adjourned
it, on the ground that it did not represent the province.
Some of the delegates signed an agreement, one article
of which promised to stop the importation of slaves March
15, 1775, i.e., four months later than the national “Association”
had directed. This was not, of course, binding on the province;
and although a town like Darien might declare “our
disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of
Slavery in America“18 yet the powerful influence of Savannah
was “not likely soon to give matters a favourable turn. The
importers were mostly against any interruption, and the consumers
very much divided.”19 Thus the efforts of this Assembly
failed, their resolutions being almost unknown, and, as a
gentleman writes, “I hope for the honour of the Province ever
will remain so.”20 The delegates to the Continental Congress
selected by this rump assembly refused to take their seats.52
Meantime South Carolina stopped trade with Georgia, because
it “hath not acceded to the Continental Association,”21
and the single Georgia parish of St. Johns appealed to the
second Continental Congress to except it from the general
boycott of the colony. This county had already resolved not
to “purchase any Slave imported at Savannah (large Numbers
of which we understand are there expected) till the Sense of
Congress shall be made known to us.”22

May 17, 1775, Congress resolved unanimously “That all exportations
to Quebec, Nova-Scotia, the Island of St. John’s,
Newfoundland, Georgia, except the Parish of St. John’s, and to
East and West Florida, immediately cease.”23 These measures
brought the refractory colony to terms, and the Provincial
Congress, July 4, 1775, finally adopted the “Association,” and
resolved, among other things, “That we will neither import
or purchase any Slave imported from Africa, or elsewhere,
after this day.”24

The non-importation agreement was in the beginning, at
least, well enforced by the voluntary action of the loosely federated
nation. The slave-trade clause seems in most States to
have been observed with the others. In South Carolina “a
cargo of near three hundred slaves was sent out of the Colony
by the consignee, as being interdicted by the second article of
the Association.”25 In Virginia the vigilance committee of
Norfolk “hold up for your just indignation Mr. John Brown,
Merchant, of this place,” who has several times imported
slaves from Jamaica; and he is thus publicly censured “to the
end that all such foes to the rights of British America may be
publickly known … as the enemies of American Liberty,
and that every person may henceforth break off all dealings
with him.”26

29. Results of the Resolution. The strain of war at last
proved too much for this voluntary blockade, and after some
53hesitancy Congress, April 3, 1776, resolved to allow the importation
of articles not the growth or manufacture of Great
Britain, except tea. They also voted “That no slaves be imported
into any of the thirteen United Colonies.”27 This marks
a noticeable change of attitude from the strong words of two
years previous: the former was a definitive promise; this is a
temporary resolve, which probably represented public opinion
much better than the former. On the whole, the conclusion
is inevitably forced on the student of this first national
movement against the slave-trade, that its influence on the
trade was but temporary and insignificant, and that at the end
of the experiment the outlook for the final suppression of the
trade was little brighter than before. The whole movement
served as a sort of social test of the power and importance of
the slave-trade, which proved to be far more powerful than
the platitudes of many of the Revolutionists had assumed.

The effect of the movement on the slave-trade in general
was to begin, possibly a little earlier than otherwise would
have been the case, that temporary breaking up of the trade
which the war naturally caused. “There was a time, during
the late war,” says Clarkson, “when the slave trade may be
considered as having been nearly abolished.”28 The prices of
slaves rose correspondingly high, so that smugglers made fortunes.29
It is stated that in the years 1772–1778 slave merchants
of Liverpool failed for the sum of £710,000.30 All this, of
course, might have resulted from the war, without the “Association;”
but in the long run the “Association” aided in
frustrating the very designs which the framers of the first resolve
had in mind; for the temporary stoppage in the end
created an extraordinary demand for slaves, and led to a slave-trade
after the war nearly as large as that before.

30. The Slave-Trade and Public Opinion after the War.
The Declaration of Independence showed a significant drift
of public opinion from the firm stand taken in the “Association”
resolutions. The clique of political philosophers to
which Jefferson belonged never imagined the continued exis54tence
of the country with slavery. It is well known that the
first draft of the Declaration contained a severe arraignment
of Great Britain as the real promoter of slavery and the slave-trade
in America. In it the king was charged with waging
“cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred
rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people
who never offended him, captivating and carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable
death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare,
the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian
king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit
or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage
of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he
is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us,
and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them,
by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them:
thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties
of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit
against the lives of another.”31

To this radical and not strictly truthful statement, even the
large influence of the Virginia leaders could not gain the assent
of the delegates in Congress. The afflatus of 1774 was
rapidly subsiding, and changing economic conditions had already
led many to look forward to a day when the slave-trade
could successfully be reopened. More important than this, the
nation as a whole was even less inclined now than in 1774 to
denounce the slave-trade uncompromisingly. Jefferson himself
says that this clause “was struck out in complaisance to South
Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain
the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still
wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe,”
said he, “felt a little tender under those censures; for though
their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been
pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”32

As the war slowly dragged itself to a close, it became in55creasingly
evident that a firm moral stand against slavery and
the slave-trade was not a probability. The reaction which naturally
follows a period of prolonged and exhausting strife for
high political principles now set in. The economic forces of
the country, which had suffered most, sought to recover and
rearrange themselves; and all the selfish motives that impelled
a bankrupt nation to seek to gain its daily bread did not long
hesitate to demand a reopening of the profitable African
slave-trade. This demand was especially urgent from the fact
that the slaves, by pillage, flight, and actual fighting, had become
so reduced in numbers during the war that an urgent
demand for more laborers was felt in the South.

Nevertheless, the revival of the trade was naturally a matter
of some difficulty, as the West India circuit had been cut off,
leaving no resort except to contraband traffic and the direct
African trade. The English slave-trade after the peace “returned
to its former state,” and was by 1784 sending 20,000
slaves annually to the West Indies.33 Just how large the trade
to the continent was at this time there are few means of ascertaining;
it is certain that there was a general reopening of
the trade in the Carolinas and Georgia, and that the New
England traders participated in it. This traffic undoubtedly
reached considerable proportions; and through the direct
African trade and the illicit West India trade many thousands
of Negroes came into the United States during the
years 1783–1787.34

Meantime there was slowly arising a significant divergence
of opinion on the subject. Probably the whole country still
regarded both slavery and the slave-trade as temporary; but
the Middle States expected to see the abolition of both within
a generation, while the South scarcely thought it probable to
prohibit even the slave-trade in that short time. Such a difference
might, in all probability, have been satisfactorily adjusted,
if both parties had recognized the real gravity of the
matter. As it was, both regarded it as a problem of secondary
importance, to be solved after many other more pressing ones
56had been disposed of. The anti-slavery men had seen slavery
die in their own communities, and expected it to die the same
way in others, with as little active effort on their own part.
The Southern planters, born and reared in a slave system,
thought that some day the system might change, and possibly
disappear; but active effort to this end on their part was ever
farthest from their thoughts. Here, then, began that fatal policy
toward slavery and the slave-trade that characterized the
nation for three-quarters of a century, the policy of laissez-faire,
laissez-passer.

31. The Action of the Confederation. The slave-trade was
hardly touched upon in the Congress of the Confederation,
except in the ordinance respecting the capture of slaves, and
on the occasion of the Quaker petition against the trade, although,
during the debate on the Articles of Confederation,
the counting of slaves as well as of freemen in the apportionment
of taxes was urged as a measure that would check further
importation of Negroes. “It is our duty,” said Wilson of
Pennsylvania, “to lay every discouragement on the importation
of slaves; but this amendment [i.e., to count two slaves
as one freeman] would give the jus trium liberorum to him
who would import slaves.”35 The matter was finally compromised
by apportioning requisitions according to the value of
land and buildings.

After the Articles went into operation, an ordinance in regard
to the recapture of fugitive slaves provided that, if the
capture was made on the sea below high-water mark, and the
Negro was not claimed, he should be freed. Matthews of
South Carolina demanded the yeas and nays on this proposition,
with the result that only the vote of his State was recorded
against it.36

On Tuesday, October 3, 1783, a deputation from the Yearly
Meeting of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware
Friends asked leave to present a petition. Leave was granted
the following day,37 but no further minute appears. According
to the report of the Friends, the petition was against the
57slave-trade; and “though the Christian rectitude of the concern
was by the Delegates generally acknowledged, yet not
being vested with the powers of legislation, they declined
promoting any public remedy against the gross national iniquity
of trafficking in the persons of fellow-men.”38

The only legislative activity in regard to the trade during
the Confederation was taken by the individual States.39 Before
1778 Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia
had by law stopped the further importation of slaves,
and importation had practically ceased in all the New England
and Middle States, including Maryland. In consequence
of the revival of the slave-trade after the War, there was then
a lull in State activity until 1786, when North Carolina laid a
prohibitive duty, and South Carolina, a year later, began her
series of temporary prohibitions. In 1787–1788 the New England
States forbade the participation of their citizens in the
traffic. It was this wave of legislation against the traffic which
did so much to blind the nation as to the strong hold which
slavery still had on the country.

58

Chapter VI

THE FEDERAL CONVENTION. 1787.

32. The First Proposition. Slavery occupied no prominent
place in the Convention called to remedy the glaring defects
of the Confederation, for the obvious reason that few of the
delegates thought it expedient to touch a delicate subject
which, if let alone, bade fair to settle itself in a manner satisfactory
to all. Consequently, neither slavery nor the slave-trade
is specifically mentioned in the delegates’ credentials of
any of the States, nor in Randolph’s, Pinckney’s, or Hamilton’s
plans, nor in Paterson’s propositions. Indeed, the debate
from May 14 to June 19, when the Committee of the Whole
reported, touched the subject only in the matter of the ratio
of representation of slaves. With this same exception, the report
of the Committee of the Whole contained no reference
to slavery or the slave-trade, and the twenty-three resolutions
of the Convention referred to the Committee of Detail, July
23 and 26, maintain the same silence.

The latter committee, consisting of Rutledge, Randolph,
Gorham, Ellsworth, and Wilson, reported a draft of the Constitution
August 6, 1787. The committee had, in its deliberations,
probably made use of a draft of a national Constitution
made by Edmund Randolph.1 One clause of this provided
that “no State shall lay a duty on imports;” and, also, “1. No
duty on exports. 2. No prohibition on such inhabitants as the
United States think proper to admit. 3. No duties by way of
such prohibition.” It does not appear that any reference to
Negroes was here intended. In the extant copy, however,
59notes in Edward Rutledge’s handwriting change the second
clause to “No prohibition on such inhabitants or people as
the several States think proper to admit.”2 In the report, August
6, these clauses take the following form:—

“Article VII. Section 4. No tax or duty shall be laid by the legislature
on articles exported from any state; nor on the migration or
importation of such persons as the several states shall think proper
to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be prohibited.”3

33. The General Debate. This, of course, referred both to
immigrants (“migration”) and to slaves (“importation”).4
Debate on this section began Tuesday, August 22, and lasted
two days. Luther Martin of Maryland precipitated the discussion
by a proposition to alter the section so as to allow a
prohibition or tax on the importation of slaves. The debate
immediately became general, being carried on principally by
Rutledge, the Pinckneys, and Williamson from the Carolinas;
Baldwin of Georgia; Mason, Madison, and Randolph of Virginia;
Wilson and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania; Dickinson
of Delaware; and Ellsworth, Sherman, Gerry, King,
and Langdon of New England.5

In this debate the moral arguments were prominent. Colonel
George Mason of Virginia denounced the traffic in slaves
as “infernal;” Luther Martin of Maryland regarded it as “inconsistent
with the principles of the revolution, and dishonorable
to the American character.” “Every principle of honor
and safety,” declared John Dickinson of Delaware, “demands
the exclusion of slaves.” Indeed, Mason solemnly averred that
the crime of slavery might yet bring the judgment of God on
the nation. On the other side, Rutledge of South Carolina
bluntly declared that religion and humanity had nothing to
do with the question, that it was a matter of “interest” alone.
Gerry of Massachusetts wished merely to refrain from giving
direct sanction to the trade, while others contented themselves
with pointing out the inconsistency of condemning the
slave-trade and defending slavery.

60

The difficulty of the whole argument, from the moral
standpoint, lay in the fact that it was completely checkmated
by the obstinate attitude of South Carolina and Georgia.
Their delegates—Baldwin, the Pinckneys, Rutledge, and others—asserted
flatly, not less than a half-dozen times during
the debate, that these States “can never receive the plan if it
prohibits the slave-trade;” that “if the Convention thought”
that these States would consent to a stoppage of the slave-trade,
“the expectation is vain.”6 By this stand all argument
from the moral standpoint was virtually silenced, for the Convention
evidently agreed with Roger Sherman of Connecticut
that “it was better to let the Southern States import slaves
than to part with those States.”

In such a dilemma the Convention listened not unwillingly
to the non possumus arguments of the States’ Rights advocates.
The “morality and wisdom” of slavery, declared Ellsworth
of Connecticut, “are considerations belonging to the
States themselves;” let every State “import what it pleases;”
the Confederation has not “meddled” with the question, why
should the Union? It is a dangerous symptom of centralization,
cried Baldwin of Georgia; the “central States” wish to
be the “vortex for everything,” even matters of “a local nature.”
The national government, said Gerry of Massachusetts,
had nothing to do with slavery in the States; it had only to
refrain from giving direct sanction to the system. Others opposed
this whole argument, declaring, with Langdon of New
Hampshire, that Congress ought to have this power, since, as
Dickinson tartly remarked, “The true question was, whether
the national happiness would be promoted or impeded by the
importation; and this question ought to be left to the national
government, not to the states particularly interested.”

Beside these arguments as to the right of the trade and the
proper seat of authority over it, many arguments of general
expediency were introduced. From an economic standpoint,
for instance, General C.C. Pinckney of South Carolina “contended,
that the importation of slaves would be for the interest
of the whole Union. The more slaves, the more produce.”
Rutledge of the same State declared: “If the Northern States
61consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of
slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will
become the carriers.” This sentiment found a more or less
conscious echo in the words of Ellsworth of Connecticut,
“What enriches a part enriches the whole.” It was, moreover,
broadly hinted that the zeal of Maryland and Virginia against
the trade had an economic rather than a humanitarian motive,
since they had slaves enough and to spare, and wished to sell
them at a high price to South Carolina and Georgia, who
needed more. In such case restrictions would unjustly discriminate
against the latter States. The argument from history
was barely touched upon. Only once was there an allusion to
“the example of all the world” “in all ages” to justify slavery,7
and once came the counter declaration that “Greece and
Rome were made unhappy by their slaves.”8 On the other
hand, the military weakness of slavery in the late war led to
many arguments on that score. Luther Martin and George
Mason dwelt on the danger of a servile class in war and insurrection;
while Rutledge hotly replied that he “would readily
exempt the other states from the obligation to protect the
Southern against them;” and Ellsworth thought that the very
danger would “become a motive to kind treatment.” The desirability
of keeping slavery out of the West was once mentioned
as an argument against the trade: to this all seemed
tacitly to agree.9

Throughout the debate it is manifest that the Convention
had no desire really to enter upon a general slavery argument.
The broader and more theoretic aspects of the question were
but lightly touched upon here and there. Undoubtedly, most
of the members would have much preferred not to raise the
question at all; but, as it was raised, the differences of opinion
were too manifest to be ignored, and the Convention, after
its first perplexity, gradually and perhaps too willingly set itself
to work to find some “middle ground” on which all parties
could stand. The way to this compromise was pointed out
by the South. The most radical pro-slavery arguments always
ended with the opinion that “if the Southern States were let
62alone, they will probably of themselves stop importations.”10
To be sure, General Pinckney admitted that, “candidly, he did
not think South Carolina would stop her importations of
slaves in any short time;” nevertheless, the Convention “observed,”
with Roger Sherman, “that the abolition of slavery
seemed to be going on in the United States, and that the
good sense of the several states would probably by degrees
complete it.” Economic forces were evoked to eke out moral
motives: when the South had its full quota of slaves, like Virginia
it too would abolish the trade; free labor was bound
finally to drive out slave labor. Thus the chorus of “laissez-faire”
increased; and compromise seemed at least in sight,
when Connecticut cried, “Let the trade alone!” and Georgia
denounced it as an “evil.” Some few discordant notes were
heard, as, for instance, when Wilson of Pennsylvania made
the uncomforting remark, “If South Carolina and Georgia
were themselves disposed to get rid of the importation of
slaves in a short time, as had been suggested, they would
never refuse to unite because the importation might be prohibited.”

With the spirit of compromise in the air, it was not long
before the general terms were clear. The slavery side was
strongly intrenched, and had a clear and definite demand. The
forces of freedom were, on the contrary, divided by important
conflicts of interest, and animated by no very strong and
decided anti-slavery spirit with settled aims. Under such circumstances,
it was easy for the Convention to miss the
opportunity for a really great compromise, and to descend to
a scheme that savored unpleasantly of “log-rolling.” The student
of the situation will always have good cause to believe
that a more sturdy and definite anti-slavery stand at this point
might have changed history for the better.

34. The Special Committee and the “Bargain.” Since the
debate had, in the first place, arisen from a proposition to tax
the importation of slaves, the yielding of this point by the
South was the first move toward compromise. To all but the
doctrinaires, who shrank from taxing men as property, the
argument that the failure to tax slaves was equivalent to a
63bounty, was conclusive. With this point settled, Randolph
voiced the general sentiment, when he declared that he “was
for committing, in order that some middle ground might, if
possible, be found.” Finally, Gouverneur Morris discovered
the “middle ground,” in his suggestion that the whole subject
be committed, “including the clauses relating to taxes on exports
and to a navigation act. These things,” said he, “may
form a bargain among the Northern and Southern States.”
This was quickly assented to; and sections four and five, on
slave-trade and capitation tax, were committed by a vote of 7
to 3,11 and section six, on navigation acts, by a vote of 9 to 2.12
All three clauses were referred to the following committee:
Langdon of New Hampshire, King of Massachusetts, Johnson
of Connecticut, Livingston of New Jersey, Clymer of
Pennsylvania, Dickinson of Delaware, Martin of Maryland,
Madison of Virginia, Williamson of North Carolina, General
Pinckney of South Carolina, and Baldwin of Georgia.

The fullest account of the proceedings of this committee is
given in Luther Martin’s letter to his constituents, and is confirmed
in its main particulars by similar reports of other delegates.
Martin writes: “A committee of one member from
each state was chosen by ballot, to take this part of the system
under their consideration, and to endeavor to agree upon
some report which should reconcile those states [i.e., South
Carolina and Georgia]. To this committee also was referred
the following proposition, which had been reported by the
committee of detail, viz.: ‘No navigation act shall be passed
without the assent of two thirds of the members present in
each house’—a proposition which the staple and commercial
states were solicitous to retain, lest their commerce should be
placed too much under the power of the Eastern States, but
which these last States were as anxious to reject. This committee—of
which also I had the honor to be a member—met,
and took under their consideration the subjects committed
to them. I found the Eastern States, notwithstanding their
aversion to slavery, were very willing to indulge the Southern64
States at least with a temporary liberty to prosecute the slave
trade, provided the Southern States would, in their turn, gratify
them, by laying no restriction on navigation acts; and after
a very little time, the committee, by a great majority, agreed
on a report, by which the general government was to be prohibited
from preventing the importation of slaves for a limited
time, and the restrictive clause relative to navigation acts
was to be omitted.”13

That the “bargain” was soon made is proven by the fact
that the committee reported the very next day, Friday, August
24, and that on Saturday the report was taken up. It was as
follows: “Strike out so much of the fourth section as was referred
to the committee, and insert ‘The migration or importation
of such persons as the several states, now existing, shall
think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the legislature
prior to the year 1800; but a tax or duty may be imposed
on such migration or importation, at a rate not exceeding the
average of the duties laid on imports.’ The fifth section to
remain as in the report. The sixth section to be stricken out.”14

35. The Appeal to the Convention. The ensuing debate,15
which lasted only a part of the day, was evidently a sort of
appeal to the House on the decisions of the committee. It
throws light on the points of disagreement. General Pinckney
first proposed to extend the slave-trading limit to 1808, and
Gorham of Massachusetts seconded the motion. This brought
a spirited protest from Madison: “Twenty years will produce
all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to
import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to
the American character than to say nothing about it in the
Constitution.”16 There was, however, evidently another “bargain”
here; for, without farther debate, the South and the
East voted the extension, 7 to 4, only New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, and Virginia objecting. The ambiguous phraseology
of the whole slave-trade section as reported did not
pass without comment; Gouverneur Morris would have it
read: “The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South
65Carolina, and Georgia, shall not be prohibited,” etc.17 This
emendation was, however, too painfully truthful for the doctrinaires,
and was, amid a score of objections, withdrawn. The
taxation clause also was manifestly too vague for practical use,
and Baldwin of Georgia wished to amend it by inserting
“common impost on articles not enumerated,” in lieu of the
“average” duty.18 This minor point gave rise to considerable
argument: Sherman and Madison deprecated any such recognition
of property in man as taxing would imply; Mason
and Gorham argued that the tax restrained the trade; while
King, Langdon, and General Pinckney contented themselves
with the remark that this clause was “the price of the first
part.” Finally, it was unanimously agreed to make the duty
“not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”19

Southern interests now being safe, some Southern members
attempted, a few days later, to annul the “bargain” by
restoring the requirement of a two-thirds vote in navigation
acts. Charles Pinckney made the motion, in an elaborate
speech designed to show the conflicting commercial interests
of the States; he declared that “The power of regulating commerce
was a pure concession on the part of the Southern
States.”20 Martin and Williamson of North Carolina, Butler of
South Carolina, and Mason of Virginia defended the proposition,
insisting that it would be a dangerous concession on
the part of the South to leave navigation acts to a mere majority
vote. Sherman of Connecticut, Morris of Pennsylvania,
and Spaight of North Carolina declared that the very diversity
of interest was a security. Finally, by a vote of 7 to 4, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia being in the minority,
the Convention refused to consider the motion, and
the recommendation of the committee passed.21

When, on September 10, the Convention was discussing
the amendment clause of the Constitution, the ever-alert
Rutledge, perceiving that the results of the laboriously66 settled
“bargain” might be endangered, declared that he “never could
agree to give a power by which the articles relating to slaves
might be altered by the states not interested in that property.”22
As a result, the clause finally adopted, September 15,
had the proviso: “Provided, that no amendment which may
be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner affect the
1st and 4th clauses in the 9th section of the 1st article.”23

36. Settlement by the Convention. Thus, the slave-trade
article of the Constitution stood finally as follows:—

“Article I. Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons
as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,
shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand
eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on
such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

This settlement of the slavery question brought out distinct
differences of moral attitude toward the institution, and yet
differences far from hopeless. To be sure, the South apologized
for slavery, the Middle States denounced it, and the
East could only tolerate it from afar; and yet all three sections
united in considering it a temporary institution, the corner-stone
of which was the slave-trade. No one of them had ever
seen a system of slavery without an active slave-trade; and
there were probably few members of the Convention who did
not believe that the foundations of slavery had been sapped
merely by putting the abolition of the slave-trade in the hands
of Congress twenty years hence. Here lay the danger; for
when the North called slavery “temporary,” she thought of
twenty or thirty years, while the “temporary” period of the
South was scarcely less than a century. Meantime, for at least
a score of years, a policy of strict laissez-faire, so far as the
general government was concerned, was to intervene. Instead
of calling the whole moral energy of the people into action,
so as gradually to crush this portentous evil, the Federal Convention
lulled the nation to sleep by a “bargain,” and left to
the vacillating and unripe judgment of the States one of the
most threatening of the social and political ills which they
67were so courageously seeking to remedy.

37. Reception of the Clause by the Nation. When the
proposed Constitution was before the country, the slave-trade
article came in for no small amount of condemnation and
apology. In the pamphlets of the day it was much discussed.
One of the points in Mason’s “Letter of Objections” was that
“the general legislature is restrained from prohibiting the further
importation of slaves for twenty odd years, though such
importations render the United States weaker, more vulnerable,
and less capable of defence.”24 To this Iredell replied,
through the columns of the State Gazette of North Carolina:
“If all the States had been willing to adopt this regulation
[i.e., to prohibit the slave-trade], I should as an individual
most heartily have approved of it, because even if the importation
of slaves in fact rendered us stronger, less vulnerable
and more capable of defence, I should rejoice in the prohibition
of it, as putting an end to a trade which has already
continued too long for the honor and humanity of those concerned
in it. But as it was well known that South Carolina
and Georgia thought a further continuance of such importations
useful to them, and would not perhaps otherwise have
agreed to the new constitution, those States which had been
importing till they were satisfied, could not with decency have
insisted upon their relinquishing advantages themselves had
already enjoyed. Our situation makes it necessary to bear the
evil as it is. It will be left to the future legislatures to allow
such importations or not. If any, in violation of their clear
conviction of the injustice of this trade, persist in pursuing it,
this is a matter between God and their own consciences. The
interests of humanity will, however, have gained something
by the prohibition of this inhuman trade, though at a distance
of twenty odd years.”25

“Centinel,” representing the Quaker sentiment of Pennsylvania,
attacked the clause in his third letter, published in the Independent
Gazetteer, or The Chronicle of Freedom, November 8,
1787: “We are told that the objects of this article are slaves, and
that it is inserted to secure to the southern states the right of
introducing negroes for twenty-one years to come, against the
68declared sense of the other states to put an end to an odious
traffic in the human species, which is especially scandalous
and inconsistent in a people, who have asserted their own liberty
by the sword, and which dangerously enfeebles the districts
wherein the laborers are bondsmen. The words, dark and
ambiguous, such as no plain man of common sense would
have used, are evidently chosen to conceal from Europe,
that in this enlightened country, the practice of slavery has its
advocates among men in the highest stations. When it is recollected
that no poll tax can be imposed on five negroes, above
what three whites shall be charged; when it is considered,
that the imposts on the consumption of Carolina field negroes
must be trifling, and the excise nothing, it is plain that the
proportion of contributions, which can be expected from the
southern states under the new constitution, will be unequal,
and yet they are to be allowed to enfeeble themselves by the
further importation of negroes till the year 1808. Has not the
concurrence of the five southern states (in the convention) to
the new system, been purchased too dearly by the rest?”26

Noah Webster’s “Examination” (1787) addressed itself to
such Quaker scruples: “But, say the enemies of slavery, negroes
may be imported for twenty-one years. This exception
is addressed to the quakers, and a very pitiful exception it is.
The truth is, Congress cannot prohibit the importation of
slaves during that period; but the laws against the importation
into particular states, stand unrepealed. An immediate
abolition of slavery would bring ruin upon the whites, and
misery upon the blacks, in the southern states. The constitution
has therefore wisely left each state to pursue its own measures,
with respect to this article of legislation, during the
period of twenty-one years.”27

The following year the “Examination” of Tench Coxe said:
“The temporary reservation of any particular matter must
ever be deemed an admission that it should be done away.
This appears to have been well understood. In addition to the
arguments drawn from liberty, justice and religion, opinions
against this practice [i.e., of slave-trading], founded in sound
69policy, have no doubt been urged. Regard was necessarily
paid to the peculiar situation of our southern fellow-citizens;
but they, on the other hand, have not been insensible of the
delicate situation of our national character on this subject.”28

From quite different motives Southern men defended this
section. For instance, Dr. David Ramsay, a South Carolina
member of the Convention, wrote in his “Address”: “It is
farther objected, that they have stipulated for a right to prohibit
the importation of negroes after 21 years. On this subject
observe, as they are bound to protect us from domestic violence,
they think we ought not to increase our exposure to
that evil, by an unlimited importation of slaves. Though Congress
may forbid the importation of negroes after 21 years, it
does not follow that they will. On the other hand, it is probable
that they will not. The more rice we make, the more
business will be for their shipping; their interest will therefore
coincide with ours. Besides, we have other sources of supply—the
importation of the ensuing 20 years, added to the
natural increase of those we already have, and the influx from
our northern neighbours who are desirous of getting rid of
their slaves, will afford a sufficient number for cultivating all
the lands in this state.”29

Finally, The Federalist, No. 41, written by James Madison,
commented as follows: “It were doubtless to be wished, that
the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not
been postponed until the year 1808, or rather, that it had been
suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to
account, either for this restriction on the General Government,
or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed.
It ought to be considered as a great point gained in
favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate
forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long
and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that
within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement
from the Federal Government, and may be totally abolished,
by a concurrence of the few States which continue the
unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been
70given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it
be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before
them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their
European brethren!

“Attempts have been made to pervert this clause into an
objection against the Constitution, by representing it on one
side as a criminal toleration of an illicit practice, and on
another, as calculated to prevent voluntary and beneficial
emigrations from Europe to America. I mention these misconstructions,
not with a view to give them an answer, for
they deserve none; but as specimens of the manner and spirit,
in which some have thought fit to conduct their opposition
to the proposed Government.”30

38. Attitude of the State Conventions. The records of the
proceedings in the various State conventions are exceedingly
meagre. In nearly all of the few States where records exist
there is found some opposition to the slave-trade clause. The
opposition was seldom very pronounced or bitter; it rather
took the form of regret, on the one hand that the Convention
went so far, and on the other hand that it did not go farther.
Probably, however, the Constitution was never in danger of
rejection on account of this clause.

Extracts from a few of the speeches, pro and con, in various
States will best illustrate the character of the arguments. In
reply to some objections expressed in the Pennsylvania convention,
Wilson said, December 3, 1787: “I consider this as
laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country;
and though the period is more distant than I could wish,
yet it will produce the same kind, gradual change, which was
pursued in Pennsylvania.”31 Robert Barnwell declared in the
South Carolina convention, January 17, 1788, that this clause
“particularly pleased” him. “Congress,” he said, “has guarantied
this right for that space of time, and at its expiration may
continue it as long as they please. This question then arises—What
will their interest lead them to do? The Eastern States,
as the honorable gentleman says, will become the carriers of
America. It will, therefore, certainly be their interest to 71encourage
exportation to as great an extent as possible; and if
the quantum of our products will be diminished by the prohibition
of negroes, I appeal to the belief of every man,
whether he thinks those very carriers will themselves dam up
the sources from whence their profit is derived. To think so is
so contradictory to the general conduct of mankind, that I am
of opinion, that, without we ourselves put a stop to them, the
traffic for negroes will continue forever.”32

In Massachusetts, January 30, 1788, General Heath said:
“The gentlemen who have spoken have carried the matter
rather too far on both sides. I apprehend that it is not in our
power to do anything for or against those who are in slavery
in the southern States…. Two questions naturally arise, if
we ratify the Constitution: Shall we do anything by our act
to hold the blacks in slavery? or shall we become partakers of
other men’s sins? I think neither of them. Each State is sovereign
and independent to a certain degree, and they have a
right, and will regulate their own internal affairs, as to themselves
appears proper.”33 Iredell said, in the North Carolina
convention, July 26, 1788: “When the entire abolition of slavery
takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to
every generous mind, and every friend of human nature….
But as it is, this government is nobly distinguished above
others by that very provision.”34

Of the arguments against the clause, two made in the Massachusetts
convention are typical. The Rev. Mr. Neal said,
January 25, 1788, that “unless his objection [to this clause] was
removed, he could not put his hand to the Constitution.”35
General Thompson exclaimed, “Shall it be said, that after we
have established our own independence and freedom, we
make slaves of others?”36 Mason, in the Virginia convention,
June 15, 1788, said: “As much as I value a union of all the
states, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union
unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful
trade…. Yet they have not secured us the property of the
72slaves we have already. So that ‘they have done what they
ought not to have done, and have left undone what they
ought to have done.'”37 Joshua Atherton, who led the opposition
in the New Hampshire convention, said: “The idea that
strikes those who are opposed to this clause so disagreeably
and so forcibly is,—hereby it is conceived (if we ratify the
Constitution) that we become consenters to and partakers in
the sin and guilt of this abominable traffic, at least for a certain
period, without any positive stipulation that it shall even
then be brought to an end.”38

In the South Carolina convention Lowndes, January 16,
1788, attacked the slave-trade clause. “Negroes,” said he,
“were our wealth, our only natural resource; yet behold how
our kind friends in the north were determined soon to tie up
our hands, and drain us of what we had! The Eastern States
drew their means of subsistence, in a great measure, from
their shipping; and, on that head, they had been particularly
careful not to allow of any burdens…. Why, then, call this
a reciprocal bargain, which took all from one party, to bestow
it on the other!”39

In spite of this discussion in the different States, only one
State, Rhode Island, went so far as to propose an amendment
directing Congress to “promote and establish such laws and
regulations as may effectually prevent the importation of
slaves of every description, into the United States.”40

39. Acceptance of the Policy. As in the Federal Convention,
so in the State conventions, it is noticeable that the compromise
was accepted by the various States from widely
different motives.41 Nevertheless, these motives were not fixed
and unchangeable, and there was still discernible a certain underlying
73agreement in the dislike of slavery. One cannot help
thinking that if the devastation of the late war had not left an
extraordinary demand for slaves in the South,—if, for instance,
there had been in 1787 the same plethora in the slave-market
as in 1774,—the future history of the country would
have been far different. As it was, the twenty-one years of
laissez-faire were confirmed by the States, and the nation entered
upon the constitutional period with the slave-trade legal
in three States,42 and with a feeling of quiescence toward it in
the rest of the Union.

74

Chapter VII

TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE AND ANTI-SLAVERY EFFORT,
1787–1806.

40. Influence of the Haytian Revolution. The rôle which
the great Negro Toussaint, called L’Ouverture, played in the
history of the United States has seldom been fully appreciated.
Representing the age of revolution in America, he rose
to leadership through a bloody terror, which contrived a Negro
“problem” for the Western Hemisphere, intensified and
defined the anti-slavery movement, became one of the causes,
and probably the prime one, which led Napoleon to sell Louisiana
for a song, and finally, through the interworking of all
these effects, rendered more certain the final prohibition of
the slave-trade by the United States in 1807.

From the time of the reorganization of the Pennsylvania
Abolition Society, in 1787, anti-slavery sentiment became active.
New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland,
and Virginia had strong organizations, and a national
convention was held in 1794. The terrible upheaval in the
West Indies, beginning in 1791, furnished this rising movement
with an irresistible argument. A wave of horror and fear
swept over the South, which even the powerful slave-traders
of Georgia did not dare withstand; the Middle States saw
their worst dreams realized, and the mercenary trade interests
75of the East lost control of the New England conscience.

41. Legislation of the Southern States. In a few years the
growing sentiment had crystallized into legislation. The
Southern States took immediate measures to close their ports,
first against West India Negroes, finally against all slaves.
Georgia, who had had legal slavery only from 1755, and had
since passed no restrictive legislation, felt compelled in 1793[1]
to stop the entry of free Negroes, and in 17982 to prohibit,
under heavy penalties, the importation of all slaves. This provision
was placed in the Constitution of the State, and, although
miserably enforced, was never repealed.

South Carolina was the first Southern State in which the
exigencies of a great staple crop rendered the rapid consumption
of slaves more profitable than their proper maintenance.
Alternating, therefore, between a plethora and a dearth of
Negroes, she prohibited the slave-trade only for short periods.
In 17883 she had forbidden the trade for five years, and
in 1792,4 being peculiarly exposed to the West Indian insurrection,
she quickly found it “inexpedient” to allow Negroes
“from Africa, the West India Islands, or other place beyond
sea” to enter for two years. This act continued to be extended,
although with lessening penalties, until 1803.5 The home demand
in view of the probable stoppage of the trade in 1808,
the speculative chances of the new Louisiana Territory trade,
and the large already existing illicit traffic combined in that
year to cause the passage of an act, December 17, reopening
the African slave-trade, although still carefully excluding
“West India” Negroes.6 This action profoundly stirred the
Union, aroused anti-slavery sentiment, led to a concerted76
movement for a constitutional amendment, and, failing in
this, to an irresistible demand for a national prohibitory act
at the earliest constitutional moment.

North Carolina had repealed her prohibitory duty act in
1790,7 but in 1794 she passed an “Act to prevent further
importation and bringing of slaves,” etc.8 Even the body-servants
of West India immigrants and, naturally, all free
Negroes, were eventually prohibited.9

42. Legislation of the Border States. The Border States,
Virginia and Maryland, strengthened their non-importation
laws, Virginia freeing illegally imported Negroes,10 and Maryland
prohibiting even the interstate trade.11 The Middle States
took action chiefly in the final abolition of slavery within their
borders, and the prevention of the fitting out of slaving vessels
in their ports. Delaware declared, in her Act of 1789, that
“it is inconsistent with that spirit of general liberty which pervades
the constitution of this state, that vessels should be fitted
out, or equipped, in any of the ports thereof, for the
purpose of receiving and transporting the natives of Africa to
places where they are held in slavery,”12 and forbade such a
practice under penalty of £500 for each person so engaged.
The Pennsylvania Act of 178813 had similar provisions, with a
penalty of £1000; and New Jersey followed with an act in
1798.14

43. Legislation of the Eastern States. In the Eastern
States, where slavery as an institution was already nearly defunct,
action was aimed toward stopping the notorious participation
of citizens in the slave-trade outside the State. The
prime movers were the Rhode Island Quakers. Having early
77secured a law against the traffic in their own State, they
turned their attention to others. Through their remonstrances
Connecticut, in 1788,15 prohibited participation in the trade by
a fine of £500 on the vessel, £50 on each slave, and loss of
insurance; this act was strengthened in 1792,16 the year after
the Haytian revolt. Massachusetts, after many fruitless attempts,
finally took advantage of an unusually bold case of
kidnapping, and passed a similar act in 1788.17 “This,” says
Belknap, “was the utmost which could be done by our legislatures;
we still have to regret the impossibility of making a
law here, which shall restrain our citizens from carrying on
this trade in foreign bottoms, and from committing the crimes
which this act prohibits, in foreign countries, as it is said some
of them have done since the enacting of these laws.”18

Thus it is seen how, spurred by the tragedy in the West
Indies, the United States succeeded by State action in prohibiting
the slave-trade from 1798 to 1803, in furthering the cause
of abolition, and in preventing the fitting out of slave-trade
expeditions in United States ports. The country had good
cause to congratulate itself. The national government hastened
to supplement State action as far as possible, and the
prophecies of the more sanguine Revolutionary fathers
seemed about to be realized, when the ill-considered act of
South Carolina showed the weakness of the constitutional
compromise.

44. First Debate in Congress, 1789. The attention of the
national government was early directed to slavery and the
trade by the rise, in the first Congress, of the question of
taxing slaves imported. During the debate on the duty bill
introduced by Clymer’s committee, Parker of Virginia
moved, May 13, 1789, to lay a tax of ten dollars per capita on
slaves imported. He plainly stated that the tax was designed
to check the trade, and that he was “sorry that the Constitution
prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation
altogether.” The proposal was evidently unwelcome, and
caused an extended debate.19 Smith of South Carolina wanted
78to postpone a matter so “big with the most serious consequences
to the State he represented.” Roger Sherman of Connecticut
“could not reconcile himself to the insertion of
human beings as an article of duty, among goods, wares, and
merchandise.” Jackson of Georgia argued against any restriction,
and thought such States as Virginia “ought to let their
neighbors get supplied, before they imposed such a burden
upon the importation.” Tucker of South Carolina declared it
“unfair to bring in such an important subject at a time when
debate was almost precluded,” and denied the right of Congress
to “consider whether the importation of slaves is proper
or not.”

Mr. Parker was evidently somewhat abashed by this onslaught
of friend and foe, but he “had ventured to introduce
the subject after full deliberation, and did not like to withdraw
it.” He desired Congress, “if possible,” to “wipe off the
stigma under which America labored.” This brought Jackson
of Georgia again to his feet. He believed, in spite of the “fashion
of the day,” that the Negroes were better off as slaves
than as freedmen, and that, as the tax was partial, “it would
be the most odious tax Congress could impose.” Such sentiments
were a distinct advance in pro-slavery doctrine, and
called for a protest from Madison of Virginia. He thought
the discussion proper, denied the partiality of the tax, and
declared that, according to the spirit of the Constitution and
his own desire, it was to be hoped “that, by expressing a national
disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and
save ourselves from reproaches, and our posterity the imbecility
ever attendant on a country filled with slaves.” Finally, to
Burke of South Carolina, who thought “the gentlemen were
contending for nothing,” Madison sharply rejoined, “If we
contend for nothing, the gentlemen who are opposed to us
do not contend for a great deal.”

It now became clear that Congress had been whirled into a
discussion of too delicate and lengthy a nature to allow its
further prolongation. Compromising councils prevailed; and
it was agreed that the present proposition should be withdrawn
and a separate bill brought in. This bill was, however,79
at the next session dexterously postponed “until the next session
of Congress.”20

45. Second Debate in Congress, 1790. It is doubtful if
Congress of its own initiative would soon have resurrected
the matter, had not a new anti-slavery weapon appeared in
the shape of urgent petitions from abolition societies. The
first petition, presented February 11, 1790,21 was from the same
interstate Yearly Meeting of Friends which had formerly petitioned
the Confederation Congress.22 They urged Congress
to inquire “whether, notwithstanding such seeming impediments,
it be not in reality within your power to exercise justice
and mercy, which, if adhered to, we cannot doubt, must
produce the abolition of the slave trade,” etc. Another Quaker
petition from New York was also presented,23 and both were
about to be referred, when Smith of South Carolina objected,
and precipitated a sharp debate.24 This debate had a distinctly
different tone from that of the preceding one, and represents
another step in pro-slavery doctrine. The key-note of these
utterances was struck by Stone of Maryland, who “feared that
if Congress took any measures indicative of an intention to
interfere with the kind of property alluded to, it would sink
it in value very considerably, and might be injurious to a great
number of the citizens, particularly in the Southern States. He
thought the subject was of general concern, and that the petitioners
had no more right to interfere with it than any other
members of the community. It was an unfortunate circumstance,
that it was the disposition of religious sects to imagine
they understood the rights of human nature better than all
the world besides.”

In vain did men like Madison disclaim all thought of unconstitutional
“interference,” and express only a desire to see
“If anything is within the Federal authority to restrain such
violation of the rights of nations and of mankind, as is supposed
to be practised in some parts of the United States.” A
storm of disapproval from Southern members met such sentiments.
80“The rights of the Southern States ought not to be
threatened,” said Burke of South Carolina. “Any extraordinary
attention of Congress to this petition,” averred Jackson
of Georgia, would put slave property “in jeopardy,” and
“evince to the people a disposition towards a total emancipation.”
Smith and Tucker of South Carolina declared that the
request asked for “unconstitutional” measures. Gerry of Massachusetts,
Hartley of Pennsylvania, and Lawrence of New
York rather mildly defended the petitioners; but after considerable
further debate the matter was laid on the table.

The very next day, however, the laid ghost walked again in
the shape of another petition from the “Pennsylvania Society
for promoting the Abolition of Slavery,” signed by its venerable
president, Benjamin Franklin. This petition asked Congress
to “step to the very verge of the power vested in you
for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
fellow-men.”25 Hartley of Pennsylvania called up the memorial
of the preceding day, and it was read a second time and a
motion for commitment made. Plain words now came from
Tucker of South Carolina. “The petition,” he said, “contained
an unconstitutional request.” The commitment would alarm
the South. These petitions were “mischievous” attempts to
imbue the slaves with false hopes. The South would not submit
to a general emancipation without “civil war.” The commitment
would “blow the trumpet of sedition in the
Southern States,” echoed his colleague, Burke. The Pennsylvania
men spoke just as boldly. Scott declared the petition
constitutional, and was sorry that the Constitution did not
interdict this “most abominable” traffic. “Perhaps, in our Legislative
capacity,” he said, “we can go no further than to impose
a duty of ten dollars, but I do not know how far I might
go if I was one of the Judges of the United States, and those
people were to come before me and claim their emancipation;
but I am sure I would go as far as I could.” Jackson of Georgia
rejoined in true Southern spirit, boldly defending slavery
in the light of religion and history, and asking if it was “good
policy to bring forward a business at this moment likely to
light up the flame of civil discord; for the people of the
81Southern States will resist one tyranny as soon as another.
The other parts of the Continent may bear them down by
force of arms, but they will never suffer themselves to be divested
of their property without a struggle. The gentleman
says, if he was a Federal Judge, he does not know to what
length he would go in emancipating these people; but I believe
his judgment would be of short duration in Georgia,
perhaps even the existence of such a Judge might be in danger.”
Baldwin, his New-England-born colleague, urged moderation
by reciting the difficulty with which the constitutional
compromise was reached, and declaring, “the moment we go
to jostle on that ground, I fear we shall feel it tremble under
our feet.” Lawrence of New York wanted to commit the memorials,
in order to see how far Congress might constitutionally
interfere. Smith of South Carolina, in a long speech, said
that his constituents entered the Union “from political, not
from moral motives,” and that “we look upon this measure
as an attack upon the palladium of the property of our country.”
Page of Virginia, although a slave owner, urged commitment,
and Madison again maintained the appropriateness
of the request, and suggested that “regulations might be made
in relation to the introduction of them [i.e., slaves] into the
new States to be formed out of the Western Territory.” Even
conservative Gerry of Massachusetts declared, with regard to
the whole trade, that the fact that “we have a right to regulate
this business, is as clear as that we have any rights whatever.”

Finally, by a vote of 43 to 11, the memorials were committed,
the South Carolina and Georgia delegations, Bland and
Coles of Virginia, Stone of Maryland, and Sylvester of New
York voting in the negative.26 A committee, consisting of Foster
of New Hampshire, Huntington of Connecticut, Gerry of
Massachusetts, Lawrence of New York, Sinnickson of New
Jersey, Hartley of Pennsylvania, and Parker of Virginia, was
charged with the matter, and reported Friday, March 5. The
absence of Southern members on this committee compelled it
to make this report a sort of official manifesto on the aims of
Northern anti-slavery politics. As such, it was sure to meet82
with vehement opposition in the House, even though conservatively
worded. Such proved to be the fact when the
committee reported. The onslaught to “negative the whole
report” was prolonged and bitter, the debate pro and con lasting
several days.1

46. The Declaration of Powers, 1790. The result is best
seen by comparing the original report with the report of the
Committee of the Whole, adopted by a vote of 29 to 25 Monday,
March 23, 1790:28—

47. The Act of 1794. This declaration of the powers of the
central government over the slave-trade bore early fruit in the
second Congress, in the shape of a shower of petitions from
abolition societies in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.30 In
some of these slavery was denounced as “an outrageous violation
of one of the most essential rights of human nature,”3184
and the slave-trade as a traffic “degrading to the rights of
man” and “repugnant to reason.”32 Others declared the trade
“injurious to the true commercial interest of a nation,”33 and
asked Congress that, having taken up the matter, they do all
in their power to limit the trade. Congress was, however, determined
to avoid as long as possible so unpleasant a matter,
and, save an angry attempt to censure a Quaker petitioner,34
nothing was heard of the slave-trade until the third Congress.

Meantime, news came from the seas southeast of Carolina
and Georgia which influenced Congress more powerfully
than humanitarian arguments had done. The wild revolt of
despised slaves, the rise of a noble black leader, and the birth
of a new nation of Negro freemen frightened the pro-slavery
advocates and armed the anti-slavery agitation. As a result, a
Quaker petition for a law against the transport traffic in slaves
was received without a murmur in 1794,35 and on March 22
the first national act against the slave-trade became a law.36 It
was designed “to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade
from the United States to any foreign place or country,” or
the fitting out of slavers in the United States for that country.
The penalties for violation were forfeiture of the ship, a fine
of $1000 for each person engaged, and of $200 for each slave
transported. If the Quakers thought this a triumph of anti-slavery
sentiment, they were quickly undeceived. Congress
might willingly restrain the country from feeding West Indian
turbulence, and yet be furious at a petition like that of 1797,37
calling attention to “the oppressed state of our brethren of
the African race” in this country, and to the interstate slave-trade.
“Considering the present extraordinary state of the
West India Islands and of Europe,” young John Rutledge insisted
“that ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,’ and t85hat
they ought to shut their door against any thing which had a
tendency to produce the like confusion in this country.” After
excited debate and some investigation by a special committee,
the petition was ordered, in both Senate and House, to be
withdrawn.

48. The Act of 1800. In the next Congress, the sixth, another
petition threw the House into paroxysms of slavery debate.
Waln of Pennsylvania presented the petition of certain
free colored men of Pennsylvania praying for a revision of the
slave-trade laws and of the fugitive-slave law, and for prospective
emancipation.38 Waln moved the reference of this memorial
to a committee already appointed on the revision of the
loosely drawn and poorly enforced Act of 1794.39 Rutledge of
South Carolina immediately arose. He opposed the motion,
saying, that these petitions were continually coming in and
stirring up discord; that it was a good thing the Negroes were
in slavery; and that already “too much of this new-fangled
French philosophy of liberty and equality” had found its way
among them. Others defended the right of petition, and declared
that none wished Congress to exceed its powers.
Brown of Rhode Island, a new figure in Congress, a man of
distinguished services and from a well-known family, boldly
set forth the commercial philosophy of his State. “We want
money,” said he, “we want a navy; we ought therefore to use
the means to obtain it. We ought to go farther than has yet
been proposed, and repeal the bills in question altogether, for
why should we see Great Britain getting all the slave trade to
themselves; why may not our country be enriched by that
lucrative traffic? There would not be a slave the more sold,
but we should derive the benefits by importing from Africa
as well as that nation.” Waln, in reply, contended that they
should look into “the slave trade, much of which was still
carrying on from Rhode Island, Boston and Pennsylvania.”
Hill of North Carolina called the House back from this general
discussion to the petition in question, and, while willing
to remedy any existing defect in the Act of 1794, hoped the
petition would not be received. Dana of Connecticut declared
86that the paper “contained nothing but a farrago of the French
metaphysics of liberty and equality;” and that “it was likely to
produce some of the dreadful scenes of St. Domingo.” The
next day Rutledge again warned the House against even discussing
the matter, as “very serious, nay, dreadful effects,
must be the inevitable consequence.” He held up the most
lurid pictures of the fatuity of the French Convention in listening
to the overtures of the “three emissaries from St.
Domingo,” and thus yielding “one of the finest islands in the
world” to “scenes which had never been practised since the
destruction of Carthage.” “But, sir,” he continued, “we have
lived to see these dreadful scenes. These horrid effects have
succeeded what was conceived once to be trifling. Most important
consequences may be the result, although gentlemen
little apprehend it. But we know the situation of things
there, although they do not, and knowing we deprecate it.
There have been emissaries amongst us in the Southern
States; they have begun their war upon us; an actual organization
has commenced; we have had them meeting in their
club rooms, and debating on that subject…. Sir, I do believe
that persons have been sent from France to feel the
pulse of this country, to know whether these [i.e., the Negroes]
are the proper engines to make use of: these people
have been talked to; they have been tampered with, and this
is going on.”

Finally, after censuring certain parts of this Negro petition,
Congress committed the part on the slave-trade to the committee
already appointed. Meantime, the Senate sent down a
bill to amend the Act of 1794, and the House took this bill
under consideration.40 Prolonged debate ensued. Brown of
Rhode Island again made a most elaborate plea for throwing
open the foreign slave-trade. Negroes, he said, bettered their
condition by being enslaved, and thus it was morally wrong
and commercially indefensible to impose “a heavy fine and
imprisonment … for carrying on a trade so advantageous;”
or, if the trade must be stopped, then equalize the matter87 and
abolish slavery too. Nichols of Virginia thought that surely
the gentlemen would not advise the importation of more Negroes;
for while it “was a fact, to be sure,” that they would
thus improve their condition, “would it be policy so to do?”
Bayard of Delaware said that “a more dishonorable item of
revenue” than that derived from the slave-trade “could not be
established.” Rutledge opposed the new bill as defective and
impracticable: the former act, he said, was enough; the States
had stopped the trade, and in addition the United States had
sought to placate philanthropists by stopping the use of our
ships in the trade. “This was going very far indeed.” New
England first began the trade, and why not let them enjoy its
profits now as well as the English? The trade could not be
stopped.

The bill was eventually recommitted and reported again.41
“On the question for its passing, a long and warm debate
ensued,” and several attempts to postpone it were made; it
finally passed, however, only Brown of Rhode Island, Dent
of Maryland, Rutledge and Huger of South Carolina, and
Dickson of North Carolina voting against it, and 67 voting
for it.42 This Act of May 10, 1800,43 greatly strengthened the
Act of 1794. The earlier act had prohibited citizens from
equipping slavers for the foreign trade; but this went so far
as to forbid them having any interest, direct or indirect, in
such voyages, or serving on board slave-ships in any capacity.
Imprisonment for two years was added to the former
fine of $2000, and United States commissioned ships were
directed to capture such slavers as prizes. The slaves though
forfeited by the owner, were not to go to the captor; and
the act omitted to say what disposition should be made of
them.

49. The Act of 1803. The Haytian revolt, having been
among the main causes of two laws, soon was the direct instigation
to a third. The frightened feeling in the South, when
freedmen from the West Indies began to arrive in various
ports, may well be imagined. On January 17, 1803, the town
of Wilmington, North Carolina, hastily memorialized Congress,
88stating the arrival of certain freed Negroes from Guadeloupe,
and apprehending “much danger to the peace and
safety of the people of the Southern States of the Union”
from the “admission of persons of that description into the
United States.”44 The House committee which considered this
petition hastened to agree “That the system of policy stated
in the said memorial to exist, and to be now pursued in the
French colonial government, of the West Indies, is fraught
with danger to the peace and safety of the United States. That
the fact stated to have occurred in the prosecution of that
system of policy, demands the prompt interference of the
Government of the United States, as well Legislative as Executive.”45
The result was a bill providing for the forfeiture of
any ship which should bring into States prohibiting the same
“any negro, mulatto, or other person of color;” the captain of
the ship was also to be punished. After some opposition46 the
bill became a law, February 28, 1803.47

50. State of the Slave-Trade from 1789 to 1803. Meantime,
in spite of the prohibitory State laws, the African slave-trade
to the United States continued to flourish. It was notorious
that New England traders carried on a large traffic.48
Members stated on the floor of the House that “it was much
to be regretted that the severe and pointed statute against the
slave trade had been so little regarded. In defiance of its
forbiddance and its penalties, it was well known that citizens
and vessels of the United States were still engaged in that
traffic…. In various parts of the nation, outfits were made
for slave-voyages, without secrecy, shame, or apprehension….
Countenanced by their fellow-citizens at home,
who were as ready to buy as they themselves were to collect
and to bring to market, they approached our Southern harbors
and inlets, and clandestinely disembarked the sooty offspring
of the Eastern, upon the ill fated soil of the Western
hemisphere. In this way, it had been computed that, during
89the last twelve months, twenty thousand enslaved negroes had
been transported from Guinea, and, by smuggling, added to
the plantation stock of Georgia and South Carolina. So little
respect seems to have been paid to the existing prohibitory
statute, that it may almost be considered as disregarded by
common consent.”49

These voyages were generally made under the flag of a foreign
nation, and often the vessel was sold in a foreign port to
escape confiscation. South Carolina’s own Congressman confessed
that although the State had prohibited the trade since
1788, she “was unable to enforce” her laws. “With navigable
rivers running into the heart of it,” said he, “it was impossible,
with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren, who,
in some parts of the Union, in defiance of the authority of
the General Government, have been engaged in this trade,
from introducing them into the country. The law was completely
evaded, and, for the last year or two [1802–3], Africans
were introduced into the country in numbers little short, I
believe, of what they would have been had the trade been a
legal one.”50 The same tale undoubtedly might have been told
of Georgia.

51. The South Carolina Repeal of 1803. This vast and apparently
irrepressible illicit traffic was one of three causes
which led South Carolina, December 17, 1803, to throw aside
all pretence and legalize her growing slave-trade; the other
two causes were the growing certainty of total prohibition of
the traffic in 1808, and the recent purchase of Louisiana by the
United States, with its vast prospective demand for slave labor.
Such a combination of advantages, which meant fortunes
to planters and Charleston slave-merchants, could not longer
be withheld from them; the prohibition was repealed, and the
United States became again, for the first time in at least five
years, a legal slave mart. This action shocked the nation,
frightening Southern States with visions of an influx of untrained
barbarians and servile insurrections, and arousing and
intensifying the anti-slavery feeling of the North, which had
90long since come to think of the trade, so far as legal enactment
went, as a thing of the past.

Scarcely a month after this repeal, Bard of Pennsylvania
solemnly addressed Congress on the matter. “For many reasons,”
said he, “this House must have been justly surprised
by a recent measure of one of the Southern States. The
impressions, however, which that measure gave my mind,
were deep and painful. Had I been informed that some formidable
foreign Power had invaded our country, I would not,
I ought not, be more alarmed than on hearing that South
Carolina had repealed her law prohibiting the importation of
slaves…. Our hands are tied, and we are obliged to stand
confounded, while we see the flood-gate opened, and pouring
incalculable miseries into our country.”51 He then moved, as
the utmost legal measure, a tax of ten dollars per head on
slaves imported.

Debate on this proposition did not occur until February 14,
when Lowndes explained the circumstances of the repeal, and
a long controversy took place.52 Those in favor of the tax argued
that the trade was wrong, and that the tax would serve
as some slight check; the tax was not inequitable, for if a State
did not wish to bear it she had only to prohibit the trade; the
tax would add to the revenue, and be at the same time a
moral protest against an unjust and dangerous traffic. Against
this it was argued that if the tax furnished a revenue it would
defeat its own object, and make prohibition more difficult in
1808; it was inequitable, because it was aimed against one
State, and would fall exclusively on agriculture; it would give
national sanction to the trade; it would look “like an attempt
in the General Government to correct a State for the undisputed
exercise of its constitutional powers;” the revenue
would be inconsiderable, and the United States had nothing
to do with the moral principle; while a prohibitory tax would
be defensible, a small tax like this would be useless as a protection
and criminal as a revenue measure.

The whole debate hinged on the expediency of the
measure, few defending South Carolina’s action.53 Finally, a
91bill was ordered to be brought in, which was done on the 17th.54
Another long debate took place, covering substantially the
same ground. It was several times hinted that if the matter
were dropped South Carolina might again prohibit the trade.
This, and the vehement opposition, at last resulted in the
postponement of the bill, and it was not heard from again
during the session.

52. The Louisiana Slave-Trade, 1803–1805. About this
time the cession of Louisiana brought before Congress the
question of the status of slavery and the slave-trade in the
Territories. Twice or thrice before had the subject called for
attention. The first time was in the Congress of the Confederation,
when, by the Ordinance of 1787,55 both slavery and
the slave-trade were excluded from the Northwest Territory.
In 1790 Congress had accepted the cession of North Carolina
back lands on the express condition that slavery there
be undisturbed.56 Nothing had been said as to slavery in the
South Carolina cession (1787),57 but it was tacitly understood
that the provision of the Northwest Ordinance would not
be applied. In 1798 the bill introduced for the cession of
Mississippi contained a specific declaration that the anti-slavery
clause of 1787 should not be included.58 The bill passed
the Senate, but caused long and excited debate in the
House.59 It was argued, on the one hand, that the case in
Mississippi was different from that in the Northwest
Territory, because slavery was a legal institution in all the
surrounding country, and to prohibit the institution was
virtually to prohibit the settling of the country. On the
other hand, Gallatin declared that if this amendment should
not obtain, “he knew not how slaves could be prevented
92from being introduced by way of New Orleans, by persons
who are not citizens of the United States.” It was moved to
strike out the excepting clause; but the motion received
only twelve votes,—an apparent indication that Congress
either did not appreciate the great precedent it was establishing,
or was reprehensibly careless. Harper of South Carolina
then succeeded in building up the Charleston slave-trade
interest by a section forbidding the slave traffic from
“without the limits of the United States.” Thatcher moved
to strike out the last clause of this amendment, and thus to
prohibit the interstate trade, but he failed to get a second.60
Thus the act passed, punishing the introduction of slaves
from without the country by a fine of $300 for each slave,
and freeing the slave.61

In 1804 President Jefferson communicated papers to Congress
on the status of slavery and the slave-trade in Louisiana.62
The Spanish had allowed the traffic by edict in 1793,
France had not stopped it, and Governor Claiborne had refrained
from interference. A bill erecting a territorial government
was already pending.63 The Northern “District of
Louisiana” was placed under the jurisdiction of Indiana Territory,
and was made subject to the provisions of the Ordinance
of 1787. Various attempts were made to amend the part
of the bill referring to the Southern Territory: first, so as completely
to prohibit the slave-trade;64 then to compel the emancipation
at a certain age of all those imported;65 next, to
confine all importation to that from the States;66 and, finally,
to limit it further to slaves imported before South Carolina
opened her ports.67 The last two amendments prevailed, and
the final act also extended to the Territory the Acts of 1794
and 1803. Only slaves imported before May 1, 1798, could be
introduced, and those must be slaves of actual settlers.68 All
93slaves illegally imported were freed.

This stringent act was limited to one year. The next year,
in accordance with the urgent petition of the inhabitants, a
bill was introduced against these restrictions.69 By dexterous
wording, this bill, which became a law March 2, 1805,70 swept
away all restrictions upon the slave-trade except that relating
to foreign ports, and left even this provision so ambiguous
that, later, by judicial interpretation of the law,71 the foreign
slave-trade was allowed, at least for a time.

Such a stream of slaves now poured into the new Territory
that the following year a committee on the matter was appointed
by the House.72 The committee reported that they
“are in possession of the fact, that African slaves, lately imported
into Charleston, have been thence conveyed into the
territory of Orleans, and, in their opinion, this practice will
be continued to a very great extent, while there is no law to
prevent it.”73 The House ordered a bill checking this to be
prepared; and such a bill was reported, but was soon
dropped.74 Importations into South Carolina during this time
reached enormous proportions. Senator Smith of that State
declared from official returns that, between 1803 and 1807,
39,075 Negroes were imported into Charleston, most of94
whom went to the Territories.75

53. Last Attempts at Taxation, 1805–1806. So alarming
did the trade become that North Carolina passed a resolution
in December, 1804,76 proposing that the States give Congress
power to prohibit the trade. Massachusetts,77 Vermont,78 New
Hampshire,79 and Maryland80 responded; and a joint resolution
was introduced in the House, proposing as an amendment
to the Constitution “That the Congress of the United
States shall have power to prevent the further importation of
slaves into the United States and the Territories thereof.”81
Nothing came of this effort; but meantime the project of taxati95on
was revived. A motion to this effect, made in February,
1805, was referred to a Committee of the Whole, but was not
discussed. Early in the first session of the ninth Congress the
motion of 1805 was renewed; and although again postponed
on the assurance that South Carolina was about to stop the
trade,82 it finally came up for debate January 20, 1806.83 Then
occurred a most stubborn legislative battle, which lasted during
the whole session.84 Several amendments to the motion
were first introduced, so as to make it apply to all immigrants,
and again to all “persons of color.” As in the former debate,
it was proposed to substitute a resolution of censure on South
Carolina. All these amendments were lost. A long debate on
the expediency of the measure followed, on the old grounds.
Early of Georgia dwelt especially on the double taxation it
would impose on Georgia; others estimated that a revenue of
one hundred thousand dollars might be derived from the tax,
a sum sufficient to replace the tax on pepper and medicines.
Angry charges and counter-charges were made,—e.g., that
Georgia, though ashamed openly to avow the trade, participated
in it as well as South Carolina. “Some recriminations
ensued between several members, on the participation of the
traders of some of the New England States in carrying on the
slave trade.” Finally, January 22, by a vote of 90 to 25, a tax
bill was ordered to be brought in.85 One was reported on the
27th.86 Every sort of opposition was resorted to. On the one
hand, attempts were made to amend it so as to prohibit importation
after 1807, and to prevent importation into the Territories;
on the other hand, attempts were made to recommit
and postpone the measure. It finally got a third reading, but
was recommitted to a select committee, and disappeared until
February 14.87 Being then amended so as to provide for the
forfeiture of smuggled cargoes, but saying nothing as to
the disposition of the slaves, it was again relegated to a
committee, after a vote of 69 to 42 against postponement.88 On
96March 4 it appeared again, and a motion to reject it was lost.
Finally, in the midst of the war scare and the question of non-importation
of British goods, the bill was apparently forgotten,
and the last attempt to tax imported slaves ended, like
the others, in failure.

54. Key-Note of the Period. One of the last acts of this
period strikes again the key-note which sounded throughout
the whole of it. On February 20, 1806, after considerable opposition,
a bill to prohibit trade with San Domingo passed
the Senate.89 In the House it was charged by one side that the
measure was dictated by France, and by the other, that it
originated in the fear of countenancing Negro insurrection.
The bill, however, became a law, and by continuations remained
on the statute-books until 1809. Even at that distance
the nightmare of the Haytian insurrection continued to haunt
the South, and a proposal to reopen trade with the island
caused wild John Randolph to point out the “dreadful evil”
of a “direct trade betwixt the town of Charleston and the
ports of the island of St. Domingo.”90

Of the twenty years from 1787 to 1807 it can only be said
that they were, on the whole, a period of disappointment so
far as the suppression of the slave-trade was concerned. Fear,
interest, and philanthropy united for a time in an effort which
bade fair to suppress the trade; then the real weakness of the
constitutional compromise appeared, and the interests of the
few overcame the fears and the humanity of the many.

97

Chapter VIII

THE PERIOD OF ATTEMPTED SUPPRESSION. 1807–1825.

55. The Act of 1807. The first great goal of anti-slavery effort
in the United States had been, since the Revolution, the
suppression of the slave-trade by national law. It would
hardly be too much to say that the Haytian revolution, in
addition to its influence in the years from 1791 to 1806, was
one of the main causes that rendered the accomplishment of
this aim possible at the earliest constitutional moment. To the
great influence of the fears of the South was added the failure
of the French designs on Louisiana, of which Toussaint
L’Ouverture was the most probable cause. The cession of
Louisiana in 1803 challenged and aroused the North on the
slavery question again; put the Carolina and Georgia slave-traders
in the saddle, to the dismay of the Border States; and
brought the whole slave-trade question vividly before the
public conscience. Another scarcely less potent influence was,
naturally, the great anti-slavery movement in England, which
after a mighty struggle of eighteen years was about to gain its
first victory in the British Act of 1807.

President Jefferson, in his pacificatory message of December
2, 1806, said: “I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the
approach of the period at which you may interpose your
authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the
United States from all further participation in those violations
of human rights which have been so long continued on the
98unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality,
the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have
long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you may pass
can take prohibitory effect till the first day of the year one
thousand eight hundred and eight, yet the intervening period
is not too long to prevent, by timely notice, expeditions
which cannot be completed before that day.”1

In pursuance of this recommendation, the very next day
Senator Bradley of Vermont introduced into the Senate a bill
which, after a complicated legislative history, became the Act
of March 2, 1807, prohibiting the African slave-trade.2

Three main questions were to be settled by this bill: first,
and most prominent, that of the disposal of illegally imported
Africans; second, that of the punishment of those concerned
in the importation; third, that of the proper limitation of the
interstate traffic by water.

The character of the debate on these three questions, as well
as the state of public opinion, is illustrated by the fact that forty
of the sixty pages of officially reported debates are devoted to
the first question, less than twenty to the second, and only two
to the third. A sad commentary on the previous enforcement of
State and national laws is the readiness with which it was admitted
that wholesale violations of the law would take place;
indeed, Southern men declared that no strict law against the
slave-trade could be executed in the South, and that it was only
by playing on the motives of personal interest that the trade
could be checked. The question of punishment indicated the
slowly changing moral attitude of the South toward the slave
system. Early boldly said, “A large majority of people in the
Southern States do not consider slavery as even an evil.”3 The
South, in fact, insisted on regarding man-stealing as a minor
offence, a “misdemeanor” rather than a “crime.” Finally, in the
short and sharp debate on the interstate coastwise trade, the
growing economic side of the slavery question came to
the front, the vested interests’ argument was squarely put, and
the future interstate trade almost consciously provided for.

99

From these considerations, it is doubtful as to how far it
was expected that the Act of 1807 would check the slave
traffic; at any rate, so far as the South was concerned, there
seemed to be an evident desire to limit the trade, but little
thought that this statute would definitively suppress it.

56. The First Question: How shall illegally imported Africans
be disposed of? The dozen or more propositions on
the question of the disposal of illegally imported Africans may
be divided into two chief heads, representing two radically
opposed parties: 1. That illegally imported Africans be free,
although they might be indentured for a term of years or removed
from the country. 2. That such Africans be sold as
slaves.4 The arguments on these two propositions, which
were many and far-reaching, may be roughly divided into
three classes, political, constitutional, and moral.

100

The political argument, reduced to its lowest terms, ran
thus: those wishing to free the Negroes illegally imported declared
that to enslave them would be to perpetrate the very
evil which the law was designed to stop. “By the same law,”
they said, “we condemn the man-stealer and become the receivers
of his stolen goods. We punish the criminal, and then
step into his place, and complete the crime.”5 They said that
the objection to free Negroes was no valid excuse; for if the
Southern people really feared this class, they would consent
to the imposing of such penalties on illicit traffic as would
stop the importation of a single slave.6 Moreover, “forfeiture”
and sale of the Negroes implied a property right in them
which did not exist.7 Waiving this technical point, and allowing
them to be “forfeited” to the government, then the government
should either immediately set them free, or, at the
most, indenture them for a term of years; otherwise, the law
would be an encouragement to violators. “It certainly will
be,” said they, “if the importer can find means to evade the
penalty of the act; for there he has all the advantage of a
market enhanced by our ineffectual attempt to prohibit.”8
They claimed that even the indenturing of the ignorant barbarian
for life was better than slavery; and Sloan declared that
the Northern States would receive the freed Negroes willingly
rather than have them enslaved.9

The argument of those who insisted that the Negroes
should be sold was tersely put by Macon: “In adopting our
measures on this subject, we must pass such a law as can be
executed.”10 Early expanded this: “It is a principle in legislation,
as correct as any which has ever prevailed, that to give
effect to laws you must not make them repugnant to the passions
and wishes of the people among whom they are to operate.
How then, in this instance, stands the fact? Do not
gentlemen from every quarter of the Union prove, on the discussion
of every question that has ever arisen in the House,
having the most remote bearing on the giving freedom to the
101Africans in the bosom of our country, that it has excited the
deepest sensibility in the breasts of those where slavery exists?
And why is this so? It is, because those who, from experience,
know the extent of the evil, believe that the most formidable
aspect in which it can present itself, is by making these people
free among them. Yes, sir, though slavery is an evil, regretted
by every man in the country, to have among us in any considerable
quantity persons of this description, is an evil far
greater than slavery itself. Does any gentleman want proof of
this? I answer that all proof is useless; no fact can be more
notorious. With this belief on the minds of the people where
slavery exists, and where the importation will take place, if at
all, we are about to turn loose in a state of freedom all persons
brought in after the passage of this law. I ask gentlemen
to reflect and say whether such a law, opposed to the ideas,
the passions, the views, and the affections of the people of the
Southern States, can be executed? I tell them, no; it is impossible—why?
Because no man will inform—why? Because to
inform will be to lead to an evil which will be deemed greater
than the offence of which information is given, because it will
be opposed to the principle of self-preservation, and to the
love of family. No, no man will be disposed to jeopard his
life, and the lives of his countrymen. And if no one dare inform,
the whole authority of the Government cannot carry
the law into effect. The whole people will rise up against it.
Why? Because to enforce it would be to turn loose, in the
bosom of the country, firebrands that would consume
them.”11

This was the more tragic form of the argument; it also had
a mercenary side, which was presented with equal emphasis.
It was repeatedly said that the only way to enforce the law
was to play off individual interests against each other. The
profit from the sale of illegally imported Negroes was declared
to be the only sufficient “inducement to give information
of their importation.”12 “Give up the idea of forfeiture,
and I challenge the gentleman to invent fines, penalties, or
punishments of any sort, sufficient to restrain the slave
trade.”13 If such Negroes be freed, “I tell you that slaves will
102continue to be imported as heretofore…. You cannot get
hold of the ships employed in this traffic. Besides, slaves will
be brought into Georgia from East Florida. They will be
brought into the Mississippi Territory from the bay of Mobile.
You cannot inflict any other penalty, or devise any other
adequate means of prevention, than a forfeiture of the Africans
in whose possession they may be found after importation.”14
Then, too, when foreigners smuggled in Negroes, “who then … could
be operated on, but the purchasers? There was the
rub—it was their interest alone which, by being operated on,
would produce a check. Snap their purse-strings, break open
their strong box, deprive them of their slaves, and by destroying
the temptation to buy, you put an end to the trade, … nothing
short of a forfeiture of the slave would afford an effectual
remedy.”15 Again, it was argued that it was impossible to
prevent imported Negroes from becoming slaves, or, what was
just as bad, from being sold as vagabonds or indentured for
life.16 Even our own laws, it was said, recognize the title of the
African slave factor in the transported Negroes; and if the importer
have no title, why do we legislate? Why not let the
African immigrant alone to get on as he may, just as we do
the Irish immigrant?17 If he should be returned to Africa, his
home could not be found, and he would in all probability
be sold into slavery again.18

The constitutional argument was not urged as seriously as
the foregoing; but it had a considerable place. On the one
hand, it was urged that if the Negroes were forfeited, they
were forfeited to the United States government, which could
dispose of them as it saw fit;19 on the other hand, it was said
that the United States, as owner, was subject to State laws,
and could not free the Negroes contrary to such laws.20
Some alleged that the freeing of such Negroes struck at the
title to all slave property;21 others thought that, as property
103in slaves was not recognized in the Constitution, it could
not be in a statute.22 The question also arose as to the source
of the power of Congress over the slave-trade. Southern men
derived it from the clause on commerce, and declared that it
exceeded the power of Congress to declare Negroes imported
into a slave State, free, against the laws of that State;
that Congress could not determine what should or should
not be property in a State.23 Northern men replied that, according
to this principle, forfeiture and sale in Massachusetts
would be illegal; that the power of Congress over the trade
was derived from the restraining clause, as a non-existent
power could not be restrained; and that the United States
could act under her general powers as executor of the Law
of Nations.24