The End of the Slave Trade
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996
From: Andy Heinze
Subject: Slave trade query
[Cross posted from H-LAW]
Query: As the Constitution doesn't provide for a ban of the international slave trade after 1808, I assume the mechanism that stopped it was an act of Congress. Is this correct, and if so would someone please give me the reference? Was this law passed as a matter of course, given the Constitutional implication of it, or was there a renewal of controversy? I need the answer faster than I can get to the relevant sources. Thank you.
Andy Heinze
Dept. of History, University of San Francisco
heinzea@usfca.edu
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996
From: David Herr
Subject: Slave Trading
The debates about slave trading have cropped up recently on a number of other H-lists. Particularly, lists have ongoing debates about the number of slaves imported to the United States. Below is an interesting post from H-LAW. Readers might want to take a look at Michael Tadman's "The Hidden History of Slave Trading" in South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 97, No. 1, January 1996. Tadman explores how pervasive the internal slave trade was in SC, finding that it stretched deep into rural regions in addition to the better known urban trade.
--David Herr, Editor, H-South
[Cross posted from H-LAW]
From: Mary Jo Miles
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution reads: 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..."
>From Divine, _America Past and Present_: "In an annual message sent to Congress in December 1806, Jefferson urged the representatives to prepare legislation outlawing the slave trade. During the early months of 1807, congressmen debated various ways of ending this embarrassing commerce. It was clear that the issue cut across party lines. Northern representatives generally favored a strong bill; some even wanted to make smuggling slaves into the country a capital offense. But there was a serious problem. The northern congressmen could not figure out what to do with black people captured by the customs agents who would enforce the legislation. To sell these Africans would involve the federal government in slavery, something which many Northerners found morally repugnant. Nor was there much sympathy for freeing them. Ignorant of the English language and lacking personal possessions, it seemed unlikely that these blacks could long survive free in the American South. Southern congressmen responded with threats and ridicule. They explained to their northern colleagues that no one in the South regarded slavery as evil. It appeared naive, therefore, to expect local planters to enforce a ban on the slave trade or to inform federal agents when they spotted a smuggler. The notion that these culprits deserved capital punishment seemed viciously inappropriate. At one point in the debate, Peter Early, a congressman from Georgia, announced that the South wanted "no civil wars, no rebellions, no insurrections, no resistance to the authority of government." All he demanded, in fact, was to let the states regulate slavery. To this, a Republican congressman from western Pennsylvania retorted that Americans who hated slavery would not be "terrified by the threat of civil war." The bill that Jefferson finally signed in March 1807 probably pleased no one. The law prohibited the importation of slaves into the United States after the new year. Whenever customs officials captured a smuggler, the slaves were turned over to state authorities and disposed of according to local custom. Southerners did not cooperate, and for many years African slaves continued to pour into southern ports. Ironically, even more blacks would have been imported had Great Britain not outlawed the slave trade in 1807. Ships of the Royal Navy seized American smigglers off the coast of Africa, and when anyone complained, the British explained that they were merely enforcing the laws of the United States."
According to Cooper, _The American South_, however, only about 50,000 slaves were smuggled into the United States from 1808 to 1860.
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996
From: David Herr
[A follow up cross post from H-LAW:]
Editor's Note:
Two messages follow.
1] Deal
2] Johnson
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From: "J. Douglas Deal"
<<--Query: As the Constitution doesn't provide for a ban of the international slave trade after 1808, I assume the mechanism that stopped it was an act of Congress. Is this correct, and if so would someone please give me the reference? Was this law passed as a matter of course, given the Constitutional implication of it, or was there a renewal of controversy? I need the answer faster than I can get to the relevant sources. Thank you. -- Andy Heinze-->>
Yes, it was stopped officially by an act of Congress, signed into law by President Jefferson on March 3, 1807. There was no real controversy over ending the trade, but the Congress was somewhat divided over issues involving implementation and enforcement of the act--particularly, what to do with smuggled slaves and how to regulate the coastwise trade. Some authors (e.g., Donald Robinson in SLAVERY IN THE STRUCTURE OF AMERICAN POLITICS) see in these 1807 debates some of the outlines of later sectional divisions over slavery.
By the way, Jefferson said the following in his December 1806 annual message to Congress: "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 so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."
This is not to say that Jefferson led the antislavery charge at that time, or earlier or later, as readers of Paul Finkelman's various essays on the subject will know.
Addendum:
Most of the act is conveniently reprinted in the Encyclopedia Britannica's THE ANNALS OF AMERICA, vol.4, pp.216-218. The original citation is THE PUBLIC STATUTES AT LARGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA..., vol.2, pp.426-430.
Doug Deal
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From: Herb Johnson
You asked about the statute implementing the constitutional slave trade prohibition. I suspect the citation you want is to the Act oif March 2, 1807, An Act to prohibit the importation of Slaves. . .2 Statutes at Large 426-430. Obviously enacting a law does not make the trade stop, and there were numerous subterfuges for bringing slaves into the United States (stress of weather, need for ship repairs, mistake, etc.) It kept the navy busy and added to the case load of the U.S. District Courts for many years after 1808. Hope this helps.
Herb Johnson
University of South Carolina School of Law
Columbia, S.C. 29208
Telephone (803) 777-4155
FAX (803) 777-2368
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996
From: David Herr
Subject: Slave Trade
David Rayson writes:
While the Constitution does not specifically mention a ban on the international slave trade, it does state in 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 1808" and in Article V, in a reference to amending the Constitution "no amendments which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article". These references, referring to slavery and the slave trade indirectly (due, presumably, to the Founding Father's reluctance to give slavery direct Constitutional legitimacy), give Constitutional recognition that the slave trade would be ended but not before a number of years had passed, giving southern slaveowners enough time to build up their slave populations. In the discussion on the slave trade, I have not noticed that the Constitutional references regarding the earliest that enabling legislation for banning the slave trade to the U.S. could be passed were cited.
David Rayson
University of Minnesota
Humanities & Social
Sciences Online
