Part 11 (1/2)
The local effect of the repeal is indicated in the experience of E.S.
Thomas, a Charleston bookseller of the time who in high prosperity had just opened a new importation of fifty thousand volumes. As he wrote in after years, the news that the legislature had reopened the slave trade ”had not been five hours in the city, before two large British Guineamen, that had been lying on and off the port for several days expecting it, came up to town; and from that day my business began to decline.... A great change at once took place in everything. Vessels were fitted out in numbers for the coast of Africa, and as fast as they returned their cargoes were bought up with avidity, not only consuming the large funds that had been acc.u.mulating, but all that could be procured, and finally exhausting credit and mortgaging the slaves for payment.... For myself, I was upwards of five years disposing of my large stock, at a sacrifice of more than a half, in all the princ.i.p.al towns from Augusta in Georgia to Boston.”[19]
[Footnote 19: E.S. Thomas, _Reminiscences_, II, 35, 36.]
As reported at the end of the period, the importations amounted to 5386 slaves in 1804; 6790 in 1805; 11,458 in 1806; and 15,676 in 1807.[20]
Senator William Smith of South Carolina upon examining the records at a later time placed the total at 39,310, and a.n.a.lysed the statistics as follows: slaves brought by British vessels, 19,449; by French vessels, 1078; by American vessels, operated mostly for the account of Rhode Islanders and foreigners, 18,048.[21] If an influx no greater than this could produce the effect which Thomas described, notwithstanding that many of the slaves were immediately res.h.i.+pped to New Orleans and many more were almost as promptly sold into the distant interior, the scale of the preceding illicit trade must have been far less than the official statements and the apologies in Congress would indicate.
[Footnote 20: _Virginia Argus_, Jan. 19, 1808.]
[Footnote 21: _Annals of Congress_, 1821-1822, pp. 73-77.]
South Carolina's opening of the trade promptly spread dismay in other states. The North Carolina legislature, by a vote afterwards described as virtually unanimous in both houses, adopted resolutions in December, 1804, instructing the Senators from North Carolina and requesting her Congressmen to use their utmost exertions at the earliest possible time to procure an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution empowering Congress at once to prohibit the further importation of slaves and other persons of color from Africa and the West Indies. Copies were ordered sent not only to the state's delegation in Congress but to the governors of the other states for transmission to the legislatures with a view to their concurrence.[22] In the next year similar resolutions were adopted by the legislatures of New Hamps.h.i.+re, Vermont, Maryland and Tennessee;[23] but the approach of the time when Congress would acquire the authority without a change of the Const.i.tution caused a s.h.i.+fting of popular concern from the scheme of amendment to the expected legislation of Congress. Meanwhile, a bill for the temporary government of the Louisiana purchase raised the question of African importations there which occasioned a debate in the Senate at the beginning of 1804[24] nearly as vigorous as those to come on the general question three years afterward.
[Footnote 22: Broadside copy of the resolution, accompanied by a letter of Governor James Turner of North Carolina to the governor of Connecticut, in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]
[Footnote 23: H.V. Ames, _Proposed Amendments to the Const.i.tution_, in the American Historical a.s.sociation _Report_ for 1896, pp. 208, 209.]
[Footnote 24: Printed from Senator Plumer's notes, in the _American Historical Review_, XXII, 340-364.]
In the winter of 1804-1805 bills were introduced in both Senate and House to prohibit slave importations at large; but the one was postponed for a year and the other was rejected,[25] doubtless because the time was not near enough when they could take effect. At last the matter was formally presented by President Jefferson. ”I congratulate you, fellow-citizens,”
he said in his annual message of December 2, 1806, ”on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority const.i.tutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further partic.i.p.ation in those violations of human rights which have been 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. Although no law you can pa.s.s can take effect until the 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.”[26] Next day Senator Bradley of Vermont gave notice of a bill which was shortly afterward introduced and which, after an unreported discussion, was pa.s.sed by the Senate on January 27. Its conspicuous provisions were that after the close of the year 1807 the importation of slaves was to be a felony punishable with death, and that the interstate coasting trade in slaves should be illegal.
[Footnote 25: W.E.B. DuBois, _Suppression of the African Slave Trade_, p.
105.]
The report of proceedings in the House was now full, now scant. The paragraph of the President's message was referred on December 3 to a committee of seven with Peter Early of Georgia as chairman and three other Southerners in the members.h.i.+p. The committee's bill reported on December 15, proposed to prohibit slave importations, to penalize the fitting out of vessels for the trade by fine and forfeiture, to lay fines and forfeitures likewise upon the owners and masters found within the jurisdictional waters of the United States with slaves from abroad on board, and empowered the President to use armed vessels in enforcement. It further provided that if slaves illegally introduced should be found within the United States they should be forfeited, and any person wittingly concerned in buying or selling them should be fined; it laid the burden of proof upon defendants when charged on reasonable grounds of presumption with having violated the act; and it prescribed that the slaves forfeited should, like other goods in the same status, be sold at public outcry by the proper federal functionaries.[27]
[Footnote 26: _Annals of Congress_, 1806-1807, p. 14.]
[Footnote 27 _Ibid_., pp. 167, 168.]
Mr. Sloan of New Jersey instantly moved to amend by providing that the forfeited slaves be ent.i.tled to freedom. Mr. Early replied that this would rob the bill of all effect by depriving it of public sanction in the districts whither slaves were likely to be brought. Those communities, he said, would never tolerate the enforcement of a law which would set fresh Africans at large in their midst. Mr. Smilie, voicing the sentiment and indicating the dilemma of most of his fellow Pennsylvanians, declared his unconquerable aversion to any measure which would make the federal government a dealer in slaves, but confessed that he had no programme of his own. Nathaniel Macon, the Speaker, saying that he thought the desire to enact an effective law was universal, agreed with Early that Sloan's amendment would defeat the purpose. Early himself waxed vehement, prophesying the prompt extermination of any smuggled slaves emanc.i.p.ated in the Southern states. The amendment was defeated by a heavy majority.
Next day, however, Mr. Bidwell of Ma.s.sachusetts renewed Sloan's attack by moving to strike out the provision for the forfeiture of the slaves; but his colleague Josiah Quincy, supported by the equally sagacious Timothy Pitkin of Connecticut, insisted upon the necessity of forfeiture; and Early contended that this was particularly essential to prevent the smuggling of slaves across the Florida border where the s.h.i.+ps which had brought them would keep beyond the reach of congressional laws. The House finding itself in an impa.s.se referred the bill back to the same committee, which soon reported it in a new form declaring the illegal importation of slaves a felony punishable with death. Upon Early's motion this provision was promptly stricken out in committee of the whole by a vote of 60 to 41; whereupon Bidwell renewed his proposal to strike out the forfeiture of slaves. He was numerously supported in speeches whose main burden was that the United States government must not become the receiver of stolen goods.
The speeches in reply stressed afresh the pivotal quality of forfeiture in an effective law; and Bidwell when pressed for an alternative plan could only say that he might if necessary be willing to leave them to the disposal of the several states, but was at any rate ”opposed to disgracing our statute book with a recognition of the principle of slavery.” Quincy replied that he wished Bidwell and his fellows ”would descend from their high abstract ground to the level of things in their own state--such as have, do and will exist after your laws, and in spite of them.” The Southern members, said he, were anxious for nothing so much as a total prohibition, and for that reason were insistent upon forfeiture. For the sake of enforcing the law, and for the sake of controlling the future condition of the smuggled slaves, forfeiture was imperative. Such a provision would not necessarily admit that the importers had had a t.i.tle in the slaves before capture, but it and it alone would effectively divest them of any color of t.i.tle to which they might pretend. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 36 to 63.
When the bill with amendments was reported to the House by the committee of the whole, on December 31, there was vigorous debate upon the question of subst.i.tuting imprisonment of from five to ten years in place of the death penalty. Mr. Talmadge of Connecticut supported the provision of death with a biblical citation; and Mr. Smilie said he considered it the very marrow of the bill. Mr. Lloyd of Maryland thought the death penalty would be out of proportion to the crime, and considered the extract from Exodus inapplicable since few of the negroes imported had been stolen in Africa.
But Mr. Olin of Vermont announced that the man-stealing argument had persuaded him in favor of the extreme penalty. Early now became furious, and in his fury, frank. In a preceding speech he had p.r.o.nounced slavery ”an evil regretted by every man in the country.”[28] He now said: ”A large majority of the people in the Southern states do not ... believe it immoral to hold human flesh in bondage. Many deprecate slavery as an evil; as a political evil; but not as a crime. Reflecting men apprehend, at some future day, evils, incalculable evils, from it; but it is a fact that few, very few, consider it as a crime. It is best to be candid on this subject.... I will tell the truth. A large majority of people in the Southern states do not consider slavery as an evil. Let the gentleman go and travel in that quarter of the Union; let him go from neighborhood to neighborhood, and he will find that this is the fact. Some gentlemen appear to legislate for the sake of appearances.... I should like to know what honor you will derive from a law that will be broken every day of your lives.”[29] Mr. Stanton said with an air of deprecation on behalf of his state of Rhode Island: ”I wish the law made so strong as to prevent this trade in future; but I cannot believe that a man ought to be hung for only stealing a negro. Those who buy them are as bad as those who import them, and deserve hanging quite as much.” The yeas and nays recorded at the end of the exhausting day showed 63 in favor and 53 against the subst.i.tution of imprisonment. The North was divided, 29 to 37, with the nays coming mostly from Pennsylvania, Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut; the South, although South Carolina as well as Kentucky was evenly divided, cast 34 yeas to 16 nays.
Virginia and Maryland, which might have been expected to be doubtful, virtually settled the question by casting 17 yeas against 6 nays.
[Footnote 28: _Annals of Congress_, 1806-1807, p. 174.]
[Footnote 29: _Ibid_., pp. 238, 239.]
When the consideration of the bill was resumed on January 7, Mr. Bidwell renewed his original attack by moving to strike out the confiscation of slaves; and when this was defeated by 39 to 77, he attempted to reach the same end by a proviso ”That no person shall be sold as a slave by virtue of this act,” This was defeated only by the casting vote of the Speaker. Those voting aye were all from Northern states, except Archer of Maryland, Broom of Delaware, Bedinger of Kentucky and Williams of North Carolina. The noes were all from the South except one from New Hamps.h.i.+re, ten from New York, and one from Pennsylvania. The outcome was evidently unsatisfactory to the bulk of the members, for on the next day a motion to recommit the bill to a new committee of seventeen prevailed by a vote of 76 to 46. Among the members who s.h.i.+fted their position over night were six of the ten from New York, four from Maryland, three from Virginia, and two from North Carolina.