[73] See, e.g., House Journal (repr. 1826), 11 Cong. 3 sess. VII. p. 575.

[74] Drake, Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, p. 51. Parts of this narrative are highly colored and untrustworthy; this passage, however, has every earmark of truth, and is confirmed by many incidental allusions.

[75] For accounts of these slavers, see House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, pp. 30-50. The "Paz" was an armed slaver flying the American flag.

[76] Said to be owned by an Englishman, but fitted in America and manned by Americans. It was eventually captured by H.M.S. "Bann," after a hard fight.

[77] Also called Spanish schooner "Triumvirate," with American supercargo, Spanish captain, and American, French, Spanish, and English crew. It was finally captured by a British vessel.

[78] An American slaver of 1814, which was boarded by a British vessel. All the above cases, and many others, were proven before British courts.

[79] House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, p. 51.

[80] House Doc., 15 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 12, pp. 22, 38. This slaver was after capture sent to New Orleans,—an illustration of the irony of the Act of 1807.

[81] House Journal, 14 Cong. 2 sess. p. 15.

[82] House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 36, p. 5.

[83] Ibid., 15 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 12, pp. 8-14. See Chew's letter of Oct. 17, 1817: Ibid., pp. 14-16.

[84] By the secret Joint Resolution and Act of 1811 (Statutes at Large, III. 471), Congress gave the President power to suppress the Amelia Island establishment, which was then notorious. The capture was not accomplished until 1817.

[85] House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, pp. 10-11. Cf. Report of the House Committee, Jan. 10, 1818: "It is but too notorious that numerous infractions of the law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States have been perpetrated with impunity upon our southern frontier." Amer. State Papers, Miscellaneous, II. No. 441.

[86] Special message of Jan. 13, 1818: House Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 137-9.

[87] Collector McIntosh, of the District of Brunswick, Ga., to the Secretary of the Treasury. House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, pp. 8-9.

[88] House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, pp. 6-7.

[89] Ibid., pp. 11-12.

[90] Amer. State Papers, Miscellaneous, II. No. 529.

[91] House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, p. 7.

[92] Ibid., p. 6.

[93] House Reports, 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348, p. 82.

[94] They were not general instructions, but were directed to Commander Campbell. Cf. House Doc., 15 Cong. 2 sess. IV. No. 84, pp. 5-6.

[95] Statutes at Large, III. 471 ff.

[96] House Doc., 15 Cong. 2 sess. VI. No. 107, pp. 8-9.

[97] Ibid., IV. No. 84. Cf. Chew's letters in House Reports, 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348.

[98] House Doc., 15 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 12, pp. 22, 38; 15 Cong. 2 sess. VI. No. 100, p. 13; 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, p. 9, etc.; House Reports, 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348, p. 85.

[99] House Doc., 15 Cong. 2 sess. VI. No. 107, pp. 8-9.

[100] House Reports, 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348, p. 77.

[101] Cf. House Doc., 16 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 42, p. 11: "The Grand Jury found true bills against the owners of the vessels, masters, and a supercargo—all of whom are discharged; why or wherefore I cannot say, except that it could not be for want of proof against them."

[102] E.g., in July, 1818, one informer "will have to leave that part of the country to save his life": Ibid., 15 Cong. 2 sess. VI. No. 100, p. 9.

[103] Joseph Nourse, Register of the Treasury, to Hon. W.H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury: Ibid., 15 Cong. 2 sess. VI. No. 107, p. 5.

[104] The slaves on the "Constitution" were not condemned, for the technical reason that she was not captured by a commissioned officer of the United States navy.

[105] These proceedings are very obscure, and little was said about them. The Spanish claimants were, it was alleged with much probability, but representatives of Americans. The claim was paid under the provisions of the Treaty of Florida, and included slaves whom the court afterward declared forfeited.

[106] An act to relieve him was finally passed, Feb. 8, 1827, nine years after the capture. See Statutes at Large, VI. 357.

[107] It is difficult to get at the exact facts in this complicated case. The above statement is, I think, much milder than the real facts would warrant, if thoroughly known. Cf. House Reports, 19 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 231; 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348, pp. 62-3, etc.; 24 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 209; Amer. State Papers, Naval, II. No. 308.

[108] The first method, represented by the Act of 1818, was favored by the South, the Senate, and the Democrats; the second method, represented by the Act of 1819, by the North, the House, and by the as yet undeveloped but growing Whig party.

[109] Committees on the slave-trade were appointed by the House in 1810 and 1813; the committee of 1813 recommended a revision of the laws, but nothing was done: Annals of Cong., 11 Cong. 3 sess. p. 387; 12 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 1074, 1090. The presidential message of 1816 led to committees on the trade in both Houses. The committee of the House of Representatives reported a joint resolution on abolishing the traffic and colonizing the Negroes, also looking toward international action. This never came to a vote: Senate Journal, 14 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 46, 179, 180; House Journal, 14 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 25, 27, 380; House Doc, 14 Cong. 2 sess. II. No. 77. Finally, the presidential message of 1817 (House Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. p. 11), announcing the issuance of orders to suppress the Amelia Island establishment, led to two other committees in both Houses. The House committee under Middleton made a report with a bill (Amer. State Papers, Miscellaneous, II. No. 441), and the Senate committee also reported a bill.

[110] The Senate debates were entirely unreported, and the report of the House debates is very meagre. For the proceedings, see Senate Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 243, 304, 315, 333, 338, 340, 348, 377, 386, 388, 391, 403, 406; House Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 19, 20, 29, 51, 92, 131, 362, 410, 450, 452, 456, 468, 479, 484, 492, 505.

[111] Simkins of South Carolina, Edwards of North Carolina, and Pindall: Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 1 sess. p. 1740.

[112] Hugh Nelson of Virginia: Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 1 sess. p. 1740.

[113] Statutes at Large, III. 450. By this act the first six sections of the Act of 1807 were repealed.

[114] Or, more accurately speaking, every one realized, in view of the increased activity of the trade, that it would be a failure.

[115] Nov. 18, 1818, the part of the presidential message referring to the slave-trade was given to a committee of the House, and this committee also took in hand the House bill of the previous session which the Senate bill had replaced: House Journal, 15 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 9-19, 42, 150, 179, 330, 334, 341, 343, 352.

[116] Of which little was reported: Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 1430-31. Strother opposed, "for various reasons of expediency," the bounties for captors. Nelson of Virginia advocated the death penalty, and, aided by Pindall, had it inserted. The vote on the bill was 57 to 45.

[117] The Senate had also had a committee at work on a bill which was reported Feb. 8, and finally postponed: Senate Journal, 15 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 234, 244, 311-2, 347. The House bill was taken up March 2: Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 2 sess. p. 280.

[118] Statutes at Large, III. 532.

[119] Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 2 sess. p. 1430. This insured the trial of slave-traders in a sympathetic slave State, and resulted in the "disappearance" of many captured Negroes.

[120] Statutes at Large, III. 533.

[121] The first of a long series of appropriations extending to 1869, of which a list is given on the next page. The totals are only approximately correct. Some statutes may have escaped me, and in the reports of moneys the surpluses of previous years are not always clearly distinguishable.

[122] In the first session of the sixteenth Congress, two bills on piracy were introduced into the Senate, one of which passed, April 26. In the House there was a bill on piracy, and a slave-trade committee reported recommending that the slave-trade be piracy. The Senate bill and this bill were considered in Committee of the Whole, May 11, and a bill was finally passed declaring, among other things, the traffic piracy. In the Senate there was "some discussion, rather on the form than the substance of these amendments," and "they were agreed to without a division": Senate Journal, 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 238, 241, 268, 287, 314, 331, 346, 350, 409, 412, 417, 420, 422, 424, 425; House Journal, 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 113, 280, 453, 454, 494, 518, 520, 522, 537; Annals of Cong., 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 693-4, 2231, 2236-7, etc. The debates were not reported.

[123] Statutes at Large, III. 600-1. This act was in reality a continuation of the piracy Act of 1819, and was only temporary. The provision was, however, continued by several acts, and finally made perpetual by the Act of Jan. 30, 1823: Statutes at Large, III. 510-4, 721. On March 3, 1823, it was slightly amended so as to give district courts jurisdiction.

[124] Attorney-General Wirt advised him, October, 1819, that no part of the appropriation could be used to purchase land in Africa or tools for the Negroes, or as salary for the agent: Opinions of Attorneys-General, I. 314-7. Monroe laid the case before Congress in a special message Dec. 20, 1819 (House Journal, 16 Cong. 1 sess. p. 57); but no action was taken there.

[125] Cf. Kendall's Report, August, 1830: Senate Doc., 21 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 1, pp. 211-8; also see below, Chapter X.

[126] Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 15, 1819, p. 18; published in Boston, 1849.

[127] Jay, Inquiry into American Colonization (1838), p. 59, note.

[128] Quoted in Friends' Facts and Observations on the Slave Trade (ed. 1841), pp. 7-8.

[129] Annals of Cong., 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 270-1.

[130] Ibid., p. 698.

[131] Ibid., p. 1207.

[132] Annals of Cong., 16 Cong. 1 sess. p. 1433.

[133] Referring particularly to the case of the slaver "Plattsburg." Cf. House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, p. 10.

[134] House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, p. 2. The President had in his message spoken in exhilarating tones of the success of the government in suppressing the trade. The House Committee appointed in pursuance of this passage made the above report. Their conclusions are confirmed by British reports: Parliamentary Papers, 1822, Vol. XXII., Slave Trade, Further Papers, III. p. 44. So, too, in 1823, Ashmun, the African agent, reports that thousands of slaves are being abducted.

[135] Ayres to the Secretary of the Navy, Feb. 24, 1823; reprinted in Friends' View of the African Slave-Trade (1824), p. 31.

[136] House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, pp. 5-6. The slavers were the "Ramirez," "Endymion," "Esperanza," "Plattsburg," "Science," "Alexander," "Eugene," "Mathilde," "Daphne," "Eliza," and "La Pensee." In these 573 Africans were taken. The naval officers were greatly handicapped by the size of the ships, etc. (cf. Friends' View, etc., pp. 33-41). They nevertheless acted with great zeal.

[137] Parliamentary Papers, 1821, Vol. XXIII., Slave Trade, Further Papers, A, p. 76. The names and description of a dozen or more American slavers are given: Ibid., pp. 18-21.

[138] House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92, pp. 15-20.

[139] House Doc., 18 Cong. 1 sess. VI. No. 119, p. 13.

[140] Parliamentary Papers, 1823, Vol. XVIII., Slave Trade, Further Papers, A, pp. 10-11.

[141] Opinions of Attorneys-General, V. 717.

[142] R.W. Habersham to the Secretary of the Navy, August, 1821; reprinted in Friends' View, etc., p. 47.

[143] Ibid., p. 42.

[144] Ibid., p. 43.

[145] Cf. above, pp. 126-7.

[146] Friends' View, etc., p. 42.

[147] A few accounts of captures here and there would make the matter less suspicious; these, however, do not occur. How large this suspected illicit traffic was, it is of course impossible to say; there is no reason why it may not have reached many hundreds per year.

[148] Cf. editorial in Niles's Register, XXII. 114. Cf. also the following instances of pardons:—

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON: March 1, 1808, Phillip M. Topham, convicted for "carrying on an illegal slave-trade" (pardoned twice). Pardons and Remissions, I. 146, 148-9.

PRESIDENT MADISON: July 29, 1809, fifteen vessels arrived at New Orleans from Cuba, with 666 white persons and 683 negroes. Every penalty incurred under the Act of 1807 was remitted. (Note: "Several other pardons of this nature were granted.") Ibid., I. 179.

Nov. 8, 1809, John Hopkins and Lewis Le Roy, convicted for importing a slave. Ibid., I. 184-5.

Feb. 12, 1810, William Sewall, convicted for importing slaves. Ibid., I. 194, 235, 240.

May 5, 1812, William Babbit, convicted for importing slaves. Ibid., I. 248.

PRESIDENT MONROE: June 11, 1822, Thomas Shields, convicted for bringing slaves into New Orleans. Ibid., IV. 15.

Aug. 24, 1822, J.F. Smith, sentenced to five years' imprisonment and $3000 fine; served twenty-five months and was then pardoned. Ibid., IV. 22.

July 23, 1823, certain parties liable to penalties for introducing slaves into Alabama. Ibid., IV. 63.

Aug. 15, 1823, owners of schooner "Mary," convicted of importing slaves. Ibid., IV. 66.

PRESIDENT J.Q. ADAMS: March 4, 1826, Robert Perry; his ship was forfeited for slave-trading. Ibid., IV. 140.

Jan. 17, 1827, Jesse Perry; forfeited ship, and was convicted for introducing slaves. Ibid., IV. 158.

Feb. 13, 1827, Zenas Winston; incurred penalties for slave-trading. Ibid., IV. 161. The four following cases are similar to that of Winston:—

Feb. 24, 1827, John Tucker and William Morbon. Ibid., IV. 162.

March 25, 1828, Joseph Badger. Ibid., IV. 192.

Feb. 19, 1829, L.R. Wallace. Ibid., IV. 215.

PRESIDENT JACKSON: Five cases. Ibid., IV. 225, 270, 301, 393, 440.

The above cases were taken from manuscript copies of the Washington records, made by Mr. W.C. Endicott, Jr., and kindly loaned me.

[149] See Senate Journal, 20 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 60, 66, 340, 341, 343, 348, 352, 355; House Journal, 20 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 59, 76, 123, 134, 156, 169, 173, 279, 634, 641, 646, 647, 688, 692.

[150] Statutes at Large, VI. 376.

[151] Among interesting minor proceedings in this period were two Senate bills to register slaves so as to prevent illegal importation. They were both dropped in the House; a House proposition to the same effect also came to nothing: Senate Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 147, 152, 157, 165, 170, 188, 201, 203, 232, 237; 15 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 63, 74, 77, 202, 207, 285, 291, 297; House Journal, 15 Cong. 1 sess. p. 332; 15 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 303, 305, 316; 16 Cong. 1 sess. p. 150. Another proposition was contained in the Meigs resolution presented to the House, Feb. 5, 1820, which proposed to devote the public lands to the suppression of the slave-trade. This was ruled out of order. It was presented again and laid on the table in 1821: House Journal, 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 196, 200, 227; 16 Cong. 2 sess. p. 238.

* * * * *



Chapter IX

THE INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.

1783-1862.

66. The Rise of the Movement against the Slave-Trade, 1788-1807. 67. Concerted Action of the Powers, 1783-1814. 68. Action of the Powers from 1814 to 1820. 69. The Struggle for an International Right of Search, 1820-1840. 70. Negotiations of 1823-1825. 71. The Attitude of the United States and the State of the Slave-Trade. 72. The Quintuple Treaty, 1839-1842. 73. Final Concerted Measures, 1842-1862.

66. The Rise of the Movement against the Slave-Trade, 1788-1807. At the beginning of the nineteenth century England held 800,000 slaves in her colonies; France, 250,000; Denmark, 27,000; Spain and Portugal, 600,000; Holland, 50,000; Sweden, 600; there were also about 2,000,000 slaves in Brazil, and about 900,000 in the United States.[1] This was the powerful basis of the demand for the slave-trade; and against the economic forces which these four and a half millions of enforced laborers represented, the battle for freedom had to be fought.

Denmark first responded to the denunciatory cries of the eighteenth century against slavery and the slave-trade. In 1792, by royal order, this traffic was prohibited in the Danish possessions after 1802. The principles of the French Revolution logically called for the extinction of the slave system by France. This was, however, accomplished more precipitately than the Convention anticipated; and in a whirl of enthusiasm engendered by the appearance of the Dominican deputies, slavery and the slave-trade were abolished in all French colonies February 4, 1794.[2] This abolition was short-lived; for at the command of the First Consul slavery and the slave-trade was restored in An X (1799).[3] The trade was finally abolished by Napoleon during the Hundred Days by a decree, March 29, 1815, which briefly declared: "A dater de la publication du present Decret, la Traite des Noirs est abolie."[4] The Treaty of Paris eventually confirmed this law.[5]

In England, the united efforts of Sharpe, Clarkson, and Wilberforce early began to arouse public opinion by means of agitation and pamphlet literature. May 21, 1788, Sir William Dolben moved a bill regulating the trade, which passed in July and was the last English measure countenancing the traffic.[6] The report of the Privy Council on the subject in 1789[7] precipitated the long struggle. On motion of Pitt, in 1788, the House had resolved to take up at the next session the question of the abolition of the trade.[8] It was, accordingly, called up by Wilberforce, and a remarkable parliamentary battle ensued, which lasted continuously until 1805. The Grenville-Fox ministry now espoused the cause. This ministry first prohibited the trade with such colonies as England had acquired by conquest during the Napoleonic wars; then, in 1806, they prohibited the foreign slave-trade; and finally, March 25, 1807, enacted the total abolition of the traffic.[9]

67. Concerted Action of the Powers, 1783-1814. During the peace negotiations between the United States and Great Britain in 1783, it was proposed by Jay, in June, that there be a proviso inserted as follows: "Provided that the subjects of his Britannic Majesty shall not have any right or claim under the convention, to carry or import, into the said States any slaves from any part of the world; it being the intention of the said States entirely to prohibit the importation thereof."[10] Fox promptly replied: "If that be their policy, it never can be competent to us to dispute with them their own regulations."[11] No mention of this was, however, made in the final treaty, probably because it was thought unnecessary.

In the proposed treaty of 1806, signed at London December 31, Article 24 provided that "The high contracting parties engage to communicate to each other, without delay, all such laws as have been or shall be hereafter enacted by their respective Legislatures, as also all measures which shall have been taken for the abolition or limitation of the African slave trade; and they further agree to use their best endeavors to procure the co-operation of other Powers for the final and complete abolition of a trade so repugnant to the principles of justice and humanity."[12]

This marks the beginning of a long series of treaties between England and other powers looking toward the prohibition of the traffic by international agreement. During the years 1810-1814 she signed treaties relating to the subject with Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden.[13] May 30, 1814, an additional article to the Treaty of Paris, between France and Great Britain, engaged these powers to endeavor to induce the approaching Congress at Vienna "to decree the abolition of the Slave Trade, so that the said Trade shall cease universally, as it shall cease definitively, under any circumstances, on the part of the French Government, in the course of 5 years; and that during the said period no Slave Merchant shall import or sell Slaves, except in the Colonies of the State of which he is a Subject."[14] In addition to this, the next day a circular letter was despatched by Castlereagh to Austria, Russia, and Prussia, expressing the hope "that the Powers of Europe, when restoring Peace to Europe, with one common interest, will crown this great work by interposing their benign offices in favour of those Regions of the Globe, which yet continue to be desolated by this unnatural and inhuman traffic."[15] Meantime additional treaties were secured: in 1814 by royal decree Netherlands agreed to abolish the trade;[16] Spain was induced by her necessities to restrain her trade to her own colonies, and to endeavor to prevent the fraudulent use of her flag by foreigners;[17] and in 1815 Portugal agreed to abolish the slave-trade north of the equator.[18]

68. Action of the Powers from 1814 to 1820. At the Congress of Vienna, which assembled late in 1814, Castlereagh was indefatigable in his endeavors to secure the abolition of the trade. France and Spain, however, refused to yield farther than they had already done, and the other powers hesitated to go to the lengths he recommended. Nevertheless, he secured the institution of annual conferences on the matter, and a declaration by the Congress strongly condemning the trade and declaring that "the public voice in all civilized countries was raised to demand its suppression as soon as possible," and that, while the definitive period of termination would be left to subsequent negotiation, the sovereigns would not consider their work done until the trade was entirely suppressed.[19]

In the Treaty of Ghent, between Great Britain and the United States, ratified February 17, 1815, Article 10, proposed by Great Britain, declared that, "Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice," the two countries agreed to use their best endeavors in abolishing the trade.[20] The final overthrow of Napoleon was marked by a second declaration of the powers, who, "desiring to give effect to the measures on which they deliberated at the Congress of Vienna, relative to the complete and universal abolition of the Slave Trade, and having, each in their respective Dominions, prohibited without restriction their Colonies and Subjects from taking any part whatever in this Traffic, engage to renew conjointly their efforts, with the view of securing final success to those principles which they proclaimed in the Declaration of the 4th February, 1815, and of concerting, without loss of time, through their Ministers at the Courts of London and of Paris, the most effectual measures for the entire and definitive abolition of a Commerce so odious, and so strongly condemned by the laws of religion and of nature."[21]

Treaties further restricting the trade continued to be made by Great Britain: Spain abolished the trade north of the equator in 1817,[22] and promised entire abolition in 1820; Spain, Portugal, and Holland also granted a mutual limited Right of Search to England, and joined in establishing mixed courts.[23] The effort, however, to secure a general declaration of the powers urging, if not compelling, the abolition of the trade in 1820, as well as the attempt to secure a qualified international Right of Visit, failed, although both propositions were strongly urged by England at the Conference of 1818.[24]

69. The Struggle for an International Right of Search, 1820-1840. Whatever England's motives were, it is certain that only a limited international Right of Visit on the high seas could suppress or greatly limit the slave-trade. Her diplomacy was therefore henceforth directed to this end. On the other hand, the maritime supremacy of England, so successfully asserted during the Napoleonic wars, would, in case a Right of Search were granted, virtually make England the policeman of the seas; and if nations like the United States had already, under present conditions, had just cause to complain of violations by England of their rights on the seas, might not any extension of rights by international agreement be dangerous? It was such considerations that for many years brought the powers to a dead-lock in their efforts to suppress the slave-trade.

At first it looked as if England might attempt, by judicial decisions in her own courts, to seize even foreign slavers.[25] After the war, however, her courts disavowed such action,[26] and the right was sought for by treaty stipulation. Castlereagh took early opportunity to approach the United States on the matter, suggesting to Minister Rush, June 20, 1818, a mutual but strictly limited Right of Search.[27] Rush was ordered to give him assurances of the solicitude of the United States to suppress the traffic, but to state that the concessions asked for appeared of a character not adaptable to our institutions. Negotiations were then transferred to Washington; and the new British minister, Mr. Stratford Canning, approached Adams with full instructions in December, 1820.[28]

Meantime, it had become clear to many in the United States that the individual efforts of States could never suppress or even limit the trade without systematic co-operation. In 1817 a committee of the House had urged the opening of negotiations looking toward such international co-operation,[29] and a Senate motion to the same effect had caused long debate.[30] In 1820 and 1821 two House committee reports, one of which recommended the granting of a Right of Search, were adopted by the House, but failed in the Senate.[31] Adams, notwithstanding this, saw constitutional objections to the plan proposed by Canning, and wrote to him, December 30: "A Compact, giving the power to the Naval Officers of one Nation to search the Merchant Vessels of another for Offenders and offences against the Laws of the latter, backed by a further power to seize and carry into a Foreign Port, and there subject to the decision of a Tribunal composed of at least one half Foreigners, irresponsible to the Supreme Corrective tribunal of this Union, and not amendable to the controul of impeachment for official misdemeanors, was an investment of power, over the persons, property and reputation of the Citizens of this Country, not only unwarranted by any delegation of Sovereign Power to the National Government, but so adverse to the elementary principles and indispensable securities of individual rights, ... that not even the most unqualified approbation of the ends ... could justify the transgression." He then suggested co-operation of the fleets on the coast of Africa, a proposal which was promptly accepted.[32]

The slave-trade was again a subject of international consideration at the Congress of Verona in 1822. Austria, France, Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia were represented. The English delegates declared that, although only Portugal and Brazil allowed the trade, yet the traffic was at that moment carried on to a greater extent than ever before. They said that in seven months of the year 1821 no less than 21,000 slaves were abducted, and three hundred and fifty-two vessels entered African ports north of the equator. "It is obvious," said they, "that this crime is committed in contravention of the Laws of every Country of Europe, and of America, excepting only of one, and that it requires something more than the ordinary operation of Law to prevent it." England therefore recommended:—

1. That each country denounce the trade as piracy, with a view of founding upon the aggregate of such separate declarations a general law to be incorporated in the Law of Nations.

2. A withdrawing of the flags of the Powers from persons not natives of these States, who engage in the traffic under the flags of these States.

3. A refusal to admit to their domains the produce of the colonies of States allowing the trade, a measure which would apply to Portugal and Brazil alone.

These proposals were not accepted. Austria would agree to the first two only; France refused to denounce the trade as piracy; and Prussia was non-committal. The utmost that could be gained was another denunciation of the trade couched in general terms.[33]

70. Negotiations of 1823-1825. England did not, however, lose hope of gaining some concession from the United States. Another House committee had, in 1822, reported that the only method of suppressing the trade was by granting a Right of Search.[34] The House agreed, February 28, 1823, to request the President to enter into negotiations with the maritime powers of Europe to denounce the slave-trade as piracy; an amendment "that we agree to a qualified right of search" was, however, lost.[35] Meantime, the English minister was continually pressing the matter upon Adams, who proposed in turn to denounce the trade as piracy. Canning agreed to this, but only on condition that it be piracy under the Law of Nations and not merely by statute law. Such an agreement, he said, would involve a Right of Search for its enforcement; he proposed strictly to limit and define this right, to allow captured ships to be tried in their own courts, and not to commit the United States in any way to the question of the belligerent Right of Search. Adams finally sent a draft of a proposed treaty to England, and agreed to recognize the slave-traffic "as piracy under the law of nations, namely: that, although seizable by the officers and authorities of every nation, they should be triable only by the tribunals of the country of the slave trading vessel."[36]

Rush presented this project to the government in January, 1824. England agreed to all the points insisted on by the United States; viz., that she herself should denounce the trade as piracy; that slavers should be tried in their own country; that the captor should be laid under the most effective responsibility for his conduct; and that vessels under convoy of a ship of war of their own country should be exempt from search. In addition, England demanded that citizens of either country captured under the flag of a third power should be sent home for trial, and that citizens of either country chartering vessels of a third country should come under these stipulations.[37]

This convention was laid before the Senate April 30, 1824, but was not acted upon until May 21, when it was so amended as to make it terminable at six months' notice. The same day, President Monroe, "apprehending, from the delay in the decision, that some difficulty exists," sent a special message to the Senate, giving at length the reasons for signing the treaty, and saying that "should this Convention be adopted, there is every reason to believe, that it will be the commencement of a system destined to accomplish the entire Abolition of the Slave Trade." It was, however, a time of great political pot-boiling, and consequently an unfortunate occasion to ask senators to settle any great question. A systematic attack, led by Johnson of Louisiana, was made on all the vital provisions of the treaty: the waters of America were excepted from its application, and those of the West Indies barely escaped exception; the provision which, perhaps, aimed the deadliest blow at American slave-trade interests was likewise struck out; namely, the application of the Right of Search to citizens chartering the vessels of a third nation.[38]

The convention thus mutilated was not signed by England, who demanded as the least concession the application of the Right of Search to American waters. Meantime the United States had invited nearly all nations to denounce the trade as piracy; and the President, the Secretary of the Navy, and a House committee had urgently favored the granting of the Right of Search. The bad faith of Congress, however, in the matter of the Colombian treaty broke off for a time further negotiations with England.[39]

71. The Attitude of the United States and the State of the Slave-Trade. In 1824 the Right of Search was established between England and Sweden, and in 1826 Brazil promised to abolish the trade in three years.[40] In 1831 the cause was greatly advanced by the signing of a treaty between Great Britain and France, granting mutually a geographically limited Right of Search.[41] This led, in the next few years, to similar treaties with Denmark, Sardinia,[42] the Hanse towns,[43] and Naples.[44] Such measures put the trade more and more in the hands of Americans, and it began greatly to increase. Mercer sought repeatedly in the House to have negotiations reopened with England, but without success.[45] Indeed, the chances of success were now for many years imperilled by the recurrence of deliberate search of American vessels by the British.[46] In the majority of cases the vessels proved to be slavers, and some of them fraudulently flew the American flag; nevertheless, their molestation by British cruisers created much feeling, and hindered all steps toward an understanding: the United States was loath to have her criminal negligence in enforcing her own laws thus exposed by foreigners. Other international questions connected with the trade also strained the relations of the two countries: three different vessels engaged in the domestic slave-trade, driven by stress of weather, or, in the "Creole" case, captured by Negroes on board, landed slaves in British possessions; England freed them, and refused to pay for such as were landed after emancipation had been proclaimed in the West Indies.[47] The case of the slaver "L'Amistad" also raised difficulties with Spain. This Spanish vessel, after the Negroes on board had mutinied and killed their owners, was seized by a United States vessel and brought into port for adjudication. The court, however, freed the Negroes, on the ground that under Spanish law they were not legally slaves; and although the Senate repeatedly tried to indemnify the owners, the project did not succeed.[48]

Such proceedings well illustrate the new tendency of the pro-slavery party to neglect the enforcement of the slave-trade laws, in a frantic defence of the remotest ramparts of slave property. Consequently, when, after the treaty of 1831, France and England joined in urging the accession of the United States to it, the British minister was at last compelled to inform Palmerston, December, 1833, that "the Executive at Washington appears to shrink from bringing forward, in any shape, a question, upon which depends the completion of their former object—the utter and universal Abolition of the Slave Trade—from an apprehension of alarming the Southern States."[49] Great Britain now offered to sign the proposed treaty of 1824 as amended; but even this Forsyth refused, and stated that the United States had determined not to become "a party of any Convention on the subject of the Slave Trade."[50]

Estimates as to the extent of the slave-trade agree that the traffic to North and South America in 1820 was considerable, certainly not much less than 40,000 slaves annually. From that time to about 1825 it declined somewhat, but afterward increased enormously, so that by 1837 the American importation was estimated as high as 200,000 Negroes annually. The total abolition of the African trade by American countries then brought the traffic down to perhaps 30,000 in 1842. A large and rapid increase of illicit traffic followed; so that by 1847 the importation amounted to nearly 100,000 annually. One province of Brazil is said to have received 173,000 in the years 1846-1849. In the decade 1850-1860 this activity in slave-trading continued, and reached very large proportions.

The traffic thus carried on floated under the flags of France, Spain, and Portugal, until about 1830; from 1830 to 1840 it began gradually to assume the United States flag; by 1845, a large part of the trade was under the stars and stripes; by 1850 fully one-half the trade, and in the decade, 1850-1860 nearly all the traffic, found this flag its best protection.[51]

72. The Quintuple Treaty, 1839-1842. In 1839 Pope Gregory XVI. stigmatized the slave-trade "as utterly unworthy of the Christian name;" and at the same time, although proscribed by the laws of every civilized State, the trade was flourishing with pristine vigor. Great advantage was given the traffic by the fact that the United States, for two decades after the abortive attempt of 1824, refused to co-operate with the rest of the civilized world, and allowed her flag to shelter and protect the slave-trade. If a fully equipped slaver sailed from New York, Havana, Rio Janeiro, or Liverpool, she had only to hoist the stars and stripes in order to proceed unmolested on her piratical voyage; for there was seldom a United States cruiser to be met with, and there were, on the other hand, diplomats at Washington so jealous of the honor of the flag that they would prostitute it to crime rather than allow an English or a French cruiser in any way to interfere. Without doubt, the contention of the United States as to England's pretensions to a Right of Visit was technically correct. Nevertheless, it was clear that if the slave-trade was to be suppressed, each nation must either zealously keep her flag from fraudulent use, or, as a labor-saving device, depute to others this duty for limited places and under special circumstances. A failure of any one nation to do one of these two things meant that the efforts of all other nations were to be fruitless. The United States had invited the world to join her in denouncing the slave-trade as piracy; yet, when such a pirate was waylaid by an English vessel, the United States complained or demanded reparation. The only answer which this country for years returned to the long-continued exposures of American slave-traders and of the fraudulent use of the American flag, was a recital of cases where Great Britain had gone beyond her legal powers in her attempt to suppress the slave-trade.[52] In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Secretary of State Forsyth declared, in 1840, that the duty of the United States in the matter of the slave-trade "has been faithfully performed, and if the traffic still exists as a disgrace to humanity, it is to be imputed to nations with whom Her Majesty's Government has formed and maintained the most intimate connexions, and to whose Governments Great Britain has paid for the right of active intervention in order to its complete extirpation."[53] So zealous was Stevenson, our minister to England, in denying the Right of Search, that he boldly informed Palmerston, in 1841, "that there is no shadow of pretence for excusing, much less justifying, the exercise of any such right. That it is wholly immaterial, whether the vessels be equipped for, or actually engaged in slave traffic or not, and consequently the right to search or detain even slave vessels, must be confined to the ships or vessels of those nations with whom it may have treaties on the subject."[54] Palmerston courteously replied that he could not think that the United States seriously intended to make its flag a refuge for slave-traders;[55] and Aberdeen pertinently declared: "Now, it can scarcely be maintained by Mr. Stevenson that Great Britain should be bound to permit her own subjects, with British vessels and British capital, to carry on, before the eyes of British officers, this detestable traffic in human beings, which the law has declared to be piracy, merely because they had the audacity to commit an additional offence by fraudulently usurping the American flag."[56] Thus the dispute, even after the advent of Webster, went on for a time, involving itself in metaphysical subtleties, and apparently leading no nearer to an understanding.[57]

In 1838 a fourth conference of the powers for the consideration of the slave-trade took place at London. It was attended by representatives of England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. England laid the projet of a treaty before them, to which all but France assented. This so-called Quintuple Treaty, signed December 20, 1841, denounced the slave-trade as piracy, and declared that "the High Contracting Parties agree by common consent, that those of their ships of war which shall be provided with special warrants and orders ... may search every merchant-vessel belonging to any one of the High Contracting Parties which shall, on reasonable grounds, be suspected of being engaged in the traffic in slaves." All captured slavers were to be sent to their own countries for trial.[58]

While the ratification of this treaty was pending, the United States minister to France, Lewis Cass, addressed an official note to Guizot at the French foreign office, protesting against the institution of an international Right of Search, and rather grandiloquently warning the powers against the use of force to accomplish their ends.[59] This extraordinary epistle, issued on the minister's own responsibility, brought a reply denying that the creation of any "new principle of international law, whereby the vessels even of those powers which have not participated in the arrangement should be subjected to the right of search," was ever intended, and affirming that no such extraordinary interpretation could be deduced from the Convention. Moreover, M. Guizot hoped that the United States, by agreeing to this treaty, would "aid, by its most sincere endeavors, in the definitive abolition of the trade."[60] Cass's theatrical protest was, consciously or unconsciously, the manifesto of that growing class in the United States who wanted no further measures taken for the suppression of the slave-trade; toward that, as toward the institution of slavery, this party favored a policy of strict laissez-faire.

73. Final Concerted Measures, 1842-1862. The Treaty of Washington, in 1842, made the first effective compromise in the matter and broke the unpleasant dead-lock, by substituting joint cruising by English and American squadrons for the proposed grant of a Right of Search. In submitting this treaty, Tyler said: "The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations. It provides simply that each of the two Governments shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce separately and respectively the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slave trade."[61] This provision was a part of the treaty to settle the boundary disputes with England. In the Senate, Benton moved to strike out this article; but the attempt was defeated by a vote of 37 to 12, and the treaty was ratified.[62]

This stipulation of the treaty of 1842 was never properly carried out by the United States for any length of time.[63] Consequently the same difficulties as to search and visit by English vessels continued to recur. Cases like the following were frequent. The "Illinois," of Gloucester, Massachusetts, while lying at Whydah, Africa, was boarded by a British officer, but having American papers was unmolested. Three days later she hoisted Spanish colors and sailed away with a cargo of slaves. Next morning she fell in with another British vessel and hoisted American colors; the British ship had then no right to molest her; but the captain of the slaver feared that she would, and therefore ran his vessel aground, slaves and all. The senior English officer reported that "had Lieutenant Cumberland brought to and boarded the 'Illinois,' notwithstanding the American colors which she hoisted,... the American master of the 'Illinois' ... would have complained to his Government of the detention of his vessel."[64] Again, a vessel which had been boarded by British officers and found with American flag and papers was, a little later, captured under the Spanish flag with four hundred and thirty slaves. She had in the interim complained to the United States government of the boarding.[65]

Meanwhile, England continued to urge the granting of a Right of Search, claiming that the stand of the United States really amounted to the wholesale protection of pirates under her flag.[66] The United States answered by alleging that even the Treaty of 1842 had been misconstrued by England,[67] whereupon there was much warm debate in Congress, and several attempts were made to abrogate the slave-trade article of the treaty.[68] The pro-slavery party had become more and more suspicious of England's motives, since they had seen her abolition of the slave-trade blossom into abolition of the system itself, and they seized every opportunity to prevent co-operation with her. At the same time, European interest in the question showed some signs of weakening, and no decided action was taken. In 1845 France changed her Right of Search stipulations of 1833 to one for joint cruising,[69] while the Germanic Federation,[70] Portugal,[71] and Chili[72]enounced the trade as piracy. In 1844 Texas granted the Right of Search to England,[73] and in 1845 Belgium signed the Quintuple Treaty.[74]

Discussion between England and the United States was revived when Cass held the State portfolio, and, strange to say, the author of "Cass's Protest" went farther than any of his predecessors in acknowledging the justice of England's demands. Said he, in 1859: "If The United States maintained that, by carrying their flag at her masthead, any vessel became thereby entitled to the immunity which belongs to American vessels, they might well be reproached with assuming a position which would go far towards shielding crimes upon the ocean from punishment; but they advance no such pretension, while they concede that, if in the honest examination of a vessel sailing under American colours, but accompanied by strongly-marked suspicious circumstances, a mistake is made, and she is found to be entitled to the flag she bears, but no injury is committed, and the conduct of the boarding party is irreproachable, no Government would be likely to make a case thus exceptional in its character a subject of serious reclamation."[75] While admitting this and expressing a desire to co-operate in the suppression of the slave-trade, Cass nevertheless steadily refused all further overtures toward a mutual Right of Search.

The increase of the slave-traffic was so great in the decade 1850-1860 that Lord John Russell proposed to the governments of the United States, France, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, that they instruct their ministers to meet at London in May or June, 1860, to consider measures for the final abolition of the trade. He stated: "It is ascertained, by repeated instances, that the practice is for vessels to sail under the American flag. If the flag is rightly assumed, and the papers correct, no British cruizer can touch them. If no slaves are on board, even though the equipment, the fittings, the water-casks, and other circumstances prove that the ship is on a Slave Trade venture, no American cruizer can touch them."[76] Continued representations of this kind were made to the paralyzed United States government; indeed, the slave-trade of the world seemed now to float securely under her flag. Nevertheless, Cass refused even to participate in the proposed conference, and later refused to accede to a proposal for joint cruising off the coast of Cuba.[77] Great Britain offered to relieve the United States of any embarrassment by receiving all captured Africans into the West Indies; but President Buchanan "could not contemplate any such arrangement," and obstinately refused to increase the suppressing squadron.[78]

On the outbreak of the Civil War, the Lincoln administration, through Secretary Seward, immediately expressed a willingness to do all in its power to suppress the slave-trade.[79] Accordingly, June 7, 1862, a treaty was signed with Great Britain granting a mutual limited Right of Search, and establishing mixed courts for the trial of offenders at the Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone, and New York.[80] The efforts of a half-century of diplomacy were finally crowned; Seward wrote to Adams, "Had such a treaty been made in 1808, there would now have been no sedition here."[81]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. Augustine Cochin, in Lalor, Cyclopedia, III. 723.

[2] By a law of Aug. 11, 1792, the encouragement formerly given to the trade was stopped. Cf. Choix de rapports, opinions et discours prononces a la tribune nationale depuis 1789 (Paris, 1821), XIV. 425; quoted in Cochin, The Results of Emancipation (Booth's translation, 1863), pp. 33, 35-8.

[3] Cochin, The Results of Emancipation (Booth's translation, 1863), pp. 42-7.

[4] British and Foreign State Papers, 1815-6, p. 196.

[5] Ibid., pp. 195-9, 292-3; 1816-7, p. 755. It was eventually confirmed by royal ordinance, and the law of April 15, 1818.

[6] Statute 28 George III., ch. 54. Cf. Statute 29 George III., ch. 66.

[7] Various petitions had come in praying for an abolition of the slave-trade; and by an order in Council, Feb. 11, 1788, a committee of the Privy Council was ordered to take evidence on the subject. This committee presented an elaborate report in 1739. See published Report, London, 1789.

[8] For the history of the Parliamentary struggle, cf. Clarkson's and Copley's histories. The movement was checked in the House of Commons in 1789, 1790, and 1791. In 1792 the House of Commons resolved to abolish the trade in 1796. The Lords postponed the matter to take evidence. A bill to prohibit the foreign slave-trade was lost in 1793, passed the next session, and was lost in the House of Lords. In 1795, 1796, 1798, and 1799 repeated attempts to abolish the trade were defeated. The matter then rested until 1804, when the battle was renewed with more success.

[9] Statute 46 George III., ch. 52, 119; 47 George III., sess. I. ch. 36.

[10] Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence, X. 154.

[11] Fox to Hartley, June 10, 1783; quoted in Bancroft, History of the Constitution of the United States, I. 61.

[12] Amer. State Papers, Foreign, III. No. 214, p. 151.

[13] British and Foreign State Papers, 1815-6, pp. 886, 937 (quotation).

[14] Ibid., pp. 890-1.

[15] British and Foreign State Papers, 1815-6, p. 887. Russia, Austria, and Prussia returned favorable replies: Ibid., pp. 887-8.

[16] Ibid., p. 889.

[17] She desired a loan, which England made on this condition: Ibid., pp. 921-2.

[18] Ibid., pp. 937-9. Certain financial arrangements secured this concession.

[19] Ibid., pp. 939-75

[20] Amer. State Papers, Foreign, III. No. 271, pp. 735-48; U.S. Treaties and Conventions (ed. 1889), p. 405.

[21] This was inserted in the Treaty of Paris, Nov. 20, 1815: British and Foreign State Papers, 1815-6, p. 292.

[22] Ibid., 1816-7, pp. 33-74 (English version, 1823-4, p. 702 ff.).

[23] Cf. Ibid., 1817-8, p. 125 ff.

[24] This was the first meeting of the London ministers of the powers according to agreement; they assembled Dec. 4, 1817, and finally called a meeting of plenipotentiaries on the question of suppression at Aix-la-Chapelle, beginning Oct. 24, 1818. Among those present were Metternich, Richelieu, Wellington, Castlereagh, Hardenberg, Bernstorff, Nesselrode, and Capodistrias. Castlereagh made two propositions: 1. That the five powers join in urging Portugal and Brazil to abolish the trade May 20, 1820; 2. That the powers adopt the principle of a mutual qualified Right of Search. Cf. British and Foreign State Papers, 1818-9, pp. 21-88; Amer. State Papers, Foreign, V. No. 346, pp. 113-122.

[25] For cases, see 1 Acton, 240, the "Amedie," and 1 Dodson, 81, the "Fortuna;" quoted in U.S. Reports, 10 Wheaton, 66.

[26] Cf. the case of the French ship "Le Louis": 2 Dodson, 238; and also the case of the "San Juan Nepomuceno": 1 Haggard, 267.

[27] British and Foreign State Papers, 1819-20, pp. 375-9; also pp. 220-2.

[28] Ibid., 1820-21, pp. 395-6.

[29] House Doc., 14 Cong. 2 sess. II. No. 77.

[30] Annals of Cong., 15 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 71, 73-78, 94-109. The motion was opposed largely by Southern members, and passed by a vote of 17 to 16.

[31] One was reported, May 9, 1820, by Mercer's committee, and passed May 12: House Journal, 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 497, 518, 520, 526; Annals of Cong., 16 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 697-9. A similar resolution passed the House next session, and a committee reported in favor of the Right of Search: Ibid., 16 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 1064-71. Cf. Ibid., pp. 476, 743, 865, 1469.

[32] British and Foreign State Papers, 1820-21, pp. 397-400.

[33] British and Foreign State Papers, 1822-3, pp. 94-110.

[34] House Reports, 17 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 92.

[35] House Journal, 17 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 212, 280; Annals of Cong., 17 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 922, 1147-1155.

[36] British and Foreign State Papers, 1823-4, pp. 409-21; 1824-5, pp. 828-47; Amer. State Papers, Foreign, V. No. 371, pp. 333-7.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid., No. 374, p. 344 ff., No. 379, pp. 360-2.

[39] House Reports, 18 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 70; Amer. State Papers, Foreign, V. No. 379, pp. 364-5, No. 414, p. 783, etc. Among the nations invited by the United States to co-operate in suppressing the trade was the United States of Colombia. Mr. Anderson, our minister, expressed "the certain belief that the Republic of Colombia will not permit herself to be behind any Government in the civilized world in the adoption of energetic measures for the suppression of this disgraceful traffic": Ibid., No. 407, p. 729. The little republic replied courteously; and, as a projet for a treaty, Mr. Anderson offered the proposed English treaty of 1824, including the Senate amendments. Nevertheless, the treaty thus agreed to was summarily rejected by the Senate, March 9, 1825: Ibid., p. 735. Another result of this general invitation of the United States was a proposal by Colombia that the slave-trade and the status of Hayti be among the subjects for discussion at the Panama Congress. As a result of this, a Senate committee recommended that the United States take no part in the Congress. This report was finally disagreed to by a vote of 19 to 24: Ibid., No. 423, pp. 837, 860, 876, 882.

[40] British and Foreign State Papers, 1823-4, and 1826-7. Brazil abolished the trade in 1830.

[41] This treaty was further defined in 1833: Ibid., 1830-1, p. 641 ff.; 1832-3, p. 286 ff.

[42] Ibid., 1833-4, pp. 218 ff., 1059 ff.

[43] Ibid., 1837-8, p. 268 ff.

[44] Ibid., 1838-9, p. 792 ff.

[45] Viz., Feb. 28, 1825; April 7, 1830; Feb. 16, 1831; March 3, 1831. The last resolution passed the House: House Journal, 21 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 426-8.

[46] Cf. House Doc., 26 Cong. 2 sess. V. No. 115, pp. 35-6, etc.; House Reports, 27 Cong. 3 sess. III. No. 283, pp. 730-55, etc.

[47] These were the celebrated cases of the "Encomium," "Enterprize," and "Comet." Cf. Senate Doc., 24 Cong. 2 sess. II. No. 174; 25 Cong. 3 sess. III. No. 216. Cf. also case of the "Creole": Ibid., 27 Cong. 2 sess. II.-III. Nos. 51, 137.

[48] Ibid., 26 Cong. 2 sess. IV. No. 179; Senate Exec. Doc., 31 Cong. 2 sess. III. No. 29; 32 Cong. 2 sess. III. No. 19; Senate Reports, 31 Cong. 2 sess. No. 301; 32 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 158; 35 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 36; House Doc., 26 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 185; 27 Cong. 3 sess. V. No. 191; 28 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 83; House Exec. Doc., 32 Cong. 2 sess. III. No. 20; House Reports, 26 Cong. 2 sess. No. 51; 28 Cong. 1 sess. II. No. 426; 29 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 753; also Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, 15 Peters, 518. Cf. Drake, Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, p. 98.

[49] British and Foreign State Papers, 1834-5, p. 136.

[50] Ibid., pp. 135-47. Great Britain made treaties meanwhile with Hayti, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentine Confederation, Mexico, Texas, etc. Portugal prohibited the slave-trade in 1836, except between her African colonies. Cf. Ibid., from 1838 to 1841.

[51] These estimates are from the following sources: Ibid., 1822-3, pp. 94-110; Parliamentary Papers, 1823, XVIII., Slave Trade, Further Papers, A., pp. 10-11; 1838-9, XLIX., Slave Trade, Class A, Further Series, pp. 115, 119, 121; House Doc., 19 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 1, p. 93; 20 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 99; 26 Cong. 1 sess. VI. No. 211; House Exec. Doc., 31 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 1, p. 193; House Reports, 21 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 348; Senate Doc., 28 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 217; 31 Cong. 1 sess. XIV. No. 66; 31 Cong. 2 sess. II. No. 6; Amer. State Papers, Naval, I. No. 249; Buxton, The African Slave Trade and its Remedy, pp. 44-59; Friends' Facts and Observations on the Slave Trade (ed. 1841); Friends' Exposition of the Slave Trade, 1840-50; Annual Reports of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

The annexed table gives the dates of the abolition of the slave-trade by the various nations:—

-+ -+ -+ Arrangements Right of Search Treaty for Joint Date. Slave-trade with Great Britain, Cruising Abolished by made by with Great Britain, made by -+ -+ -+ 1802 Denmark. 1807 Great Britain; United States. 1813 Sweden. 1814 Netherlands. 1815 Portugal (north of the equator). 1817 Spain (north of Portugal; Spain. the equator). 1818 France. Netherlands. 1820 Spain. 1824 Sweden. 1829 Brazil (?). 1830 Portugal. 1831-33 France. 1833-39 Denmark, Hanse Towns, etc. 1841 Quintuple Treaty (Austria, 1842 Russia, Prussia). United States. 1844 Texas. 1845 Belgium. France. 1862 United States. -+ -+ -+



[52] Cf. British and Foreign State Papers, from 1836 to 1842.

[53] Ibid., 1839-40, p. 940.

[54] House Doc., 27 Cong. 1 sess. No. 34, pp. 5-6.

[55] Senate Doc., 29 Cong. 1 sess. VIII. No. 377, p. 56.

[56] Ibid., p. 72.

[57] Ibid., pp. 133-40, etc.

[58] British and Foreign State Papers, 1841-2, p. 269 ff.

[59] See below, Appendix B.

[60] Senate Doc., 29 Cong. 1 sess. VIII. No. 377, p. 201.

[61] Senate Exec. Journal, VI. 123.

[62] U.S. Treaties and Conventions (ed. 1889), pp. 436-7. For the debates in the Senate, see Congressional Globe, 27 Cong. 3 sess. Appendix. Cass resigned on account of the acceptance of this treaty without a distinct denial of the Right of Search, claiming that this compromised his position in France. Cf. Senate Doc., 27 Cong. 3 sess. II., IV. Nos. 52, 223; 29 Cong. 1 sess. VIII. No. 377.

[63] Cf. below, Chapter X.

[64] Senate Exec. Doc., 28 Cong. 2 sess. IX. No. 150, p. 72.

[65] Ibid., p. 77.

[66] House Doc., 27 Cong. 3 sess. V. No. 192, p. 4. Cf. British and Foreign State Papers, 1842-3, p. 708 ff.

[67] House Journal, 27 Cong. 3 sess. pp. 431, 485-8. Cf. House Doc., 27 Cong. 3 sess. V. No. 192.

[68] Cf. below, Chapter X.

[69] With a fleet of 26 vessels, reduced to 12 in 1849: British and Foreign State Papers, 1844-5, p. 4 ff.; 1849-50, p. 480.

[70] Ibid., 1850-1, p. 953.

[71] Portugal renewed her Right of Search treaty in 1842: Ibid., 1841-2, p. 527 ff.; 1842-3, p. 450.

[72] Ibid., 1843-4, p. 316.

[73] Ibid., 1844-5, p. 592. There already existed some such privileges between England and Texas.

[74] Ibid., 1847-8, p. 397 ff.

[75] Ibid., 1858-9, pp. 1121, 1129.

[76] British and Foreign State Papers, 1859-60, pp. 902-3.

[77] House Exec. Doc., 36 Cong. 2 sess. IV. No. 7.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Senate Exec. Doc., 37 Cong. 2 sess. V. No. 57.

[80] Senate Exec. Journal, XII. 230-1, 240, 254, 256, 391, 400, 403; Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, pp. 141, 158; U.S. Treaties and Conventions (ed. 1889), pp. 454-9.

[81] Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, pp. 64-5. This treaty was revised in 1863. The mixed court in the West Indies had, by February, 1864, liberated 95,206 Africans: Senate Exec. Doc., 38 Cong. 1 sess. No. 56, p. 24.

* * * * *



Chapter X

THE RISE OF THE COTTON KINGDOM. 1820-1850.

74. The Economic Revolution. 75. The Attitude of the South. 76. The Attitude of the North and Congress. 77. Imperfect Application of the Laws. 78. Responsibility of the Government. 79. Activity of the Slave-Trade.

74. The Economic Revolution. The history of slavery and the slave-trade after 1820 must be read in the light of the industrial revolution through which the civilized world passed in the first half of the nineteenth century. Between the years 1775 and 1825 occurred economic events and changes of the highest importance and widest influence. Though all branches of industry felt the impulse of this new industrial life, yet, "if we consider single industries, cotton manufacture has, during the nineteenth century, made the most magnificent and gigantic advances."[1] This fact is easily explained by the remarkable series of inventions that revolutionized this industry between 1738 and 1830, including Arkwright's, Watt's, Compton's, and Cartwright's epoch-making contrivances.[2] The effect which these inventions had on the manufacture of cotton goods is best illustrated by the fact that in England, the chief cotton market of the world, the consumption of raw cotton rose steadily from 13,000 bales in 1781, to 572,000 in 1820, to 871,000 in 1830, and to 3,366,000 in 1860.[3] Very early, therefore, came the query whence the supply of raw cotton was to come. Tentative experiments on the rich, broad fields of the Southern United States, together with the indispensable invention of Whitney's cotton-gin, soon answered this question: a new economic future was opened up to this land, and immediately the whole South began to extend its cotton culture, and more and more to throw its whole energy into this one staple.

Here it was that the fatal mistake of compromising with slavery in the beginning, and of the policy of laissez-faire pursued thereafter, became painfully manifest; for, instead now of a healthy, normal, economic development along proper industrial lines, we have the abnormal and fatal rise of a slave-labor large farming system, which, before it was realized, had so intertwined itself with and braced itself upon the economic forces of an industrial age, that a vast and terrible civil war was necessary to displace it. The tendencies to a patriarchal serfdom, recognizable in the age of Washington and Jefferson, began slowly but surely to disappear; and in the second quarter of the century Southern slavery was irresistibly changing from a family institution to an industrial system.

The development of Southern slavery has heretofore been viewed so exclusively from the ethical and social standpoint that we are apt to forget its close and indissoluble connection with the world's cotton market. Beginning with 1820, a little after the close of the Napoleonic wars, when the industry of cotton manufacture had begun its modern development and the South had definitely assumed her position as chief producer of raw cotton, we find the average price of cotton per pound, 81/2d. From this time until 1845 the price steadily fell, until in the latter year it reached 4d.; the only exception to this fall was in the years 1832-1839, when, among other things, a strong increase in the English demand, together with an attempt of the young slave power to "corner" the market, sent the price up as high as 11d. The demand for cotton goods soon outran a crop which McCullough had pronounced "prodigious," and after 1845 the price started on a steady rise, which, except for the checks suffered during the continental revolutions and the Crimean War, continued until 1860.[4] The steady increase in the production of cotton explains the fall in price down to 1845. In 1822 the crop was a half-million bales; in 1831, a million; in 1838, a million and a half; and in 1840-1843, two million. By this time the world's consumption of cotton goods began to increase so rapidly that, in spite of the increase in Southern crops, the price kept rising. Three million bales were gathered in 1852, three and a half million in 1856, and the remarkable crop of five million bales in 1860.[5]

Here we have data to explain largely the economic development of the South. By 1822 the large-plantation slave system had gained footing; in 1838-1839 it was able to show its power in the cotton "corner;" by the end of the next decade it had not only gained a solid economic foundation, but it had built a closed oligarchy with a political policy. The changes in price during the next few years drove out of competition many survivors of the small-farming free-labor system, and put the slave regime in position to dictate the policy of the nation. The zenith of the system and the first inevitable signs of decay came in the years 1850-1860, when the rising price of cotton threw the whole economic energy of the South into its cultivation, leading to a terrible consumption of soil and slaves, to a great increase in the size of plantations, and to increasing power and effrontery on the part of the slave barons. Finally, when a rising moral crusade conjoined with threatened economic disaster, the oligarchy, encouraged by the state of the cotton market, risked all on a political coup-d'etat, which failed in the war of 1861-1865.[6]

75. The Attitude of the South. The attitude of the South toward the slave-trade changed pari passu with this development of the cotton trade. From 1808 to 1820 the South half wished to get rid of a troublesome and abnormal institution, and yet saw no way to do so. The fear of insurrection and of the further spread of the disagreeable system led her to consent to the partial prohibition of the trade by severe national enactments. Nevertheless, she had in the matter no settled policy: she refused to support vigorously the execution of the laws she had helped to make, and at the same time she acknowledged the theoretical necessity of these laws. After 1820, however, there came a gradual change. The South found herself supplied with a body of slave laborers, whose number had been augmented by large illicit importations, with an abundance of rich land, and with all other natural facilities for raising a crop which was in large demand and peculiarly adapted to slave labor. The increasing crop caused a new demand for slaves, and an interstate slave-traffic arose between the Border and the Gulf States, which turned the former into slave-breeding districts, and bound them to the slave States by ties of strong economic interest.

As the cotton crop continued to increase, this source of supply became inadequate, especially as the theory of land and slave consumption broke down former ethical and prudential bounds. It was, for example, found cheaper to work a slave to death in a few years, and buy a new one, than to care for him in sickness and old age; so, too, it was easier to despoil rich, new land in a few years of intensive culture, and move on to the Southwest, than to fertilize and conserve the soil.[7] Consequently, there early came a demand for land and slaves greater than the country could supply. The demand for land showed itself in the annexation of Texas, the conquest of Mexico, and the movement toward the acquisition of Cuba. The demand for slaves was manifested in the illicit traffic that noticeably increased about 1835, and reached large proportions by 1860. It was also seen in a disposition to attack the government for stigmatizing the trade as criminal,[8] then in a disinclination to take any measures which would have rendered our repressive laws effective; and finally in such articulate declarations by prominent men as this: "Experience having settled the point, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the use of force, and that blockading squadrons serve only to make it more profitable and more cruel, I am surprised that the attempt is persisted in, unless as it serves as a cloak to some other purposes. It would be far better than it now is, for the African, if the trade was free from all restrictions, and left to the mitigation and decay which time and competition would surely bring about."[9]

76. The Attitude of the North and Congress. With the North as yet unawakened to the great changes taking place in the South, and with the attitude of the South thus in process of development, little or no constructive legislation could be expected on the subject of the slave-trade. As the divergence in sentiment became more and more pronounced, there were various attempts at legislation, all of which proved abortive. The pro-slavery party attempted, as early as 1826, and again in 1828, to abolish the African agency and leave the Africans practically at the mercy of the States;[10] one or two attempts were made to relax the few provisions which restrained the coastwise trade;[11] and, after the treaty of 1842, Benton proposed to stop appropriations for the African squadron until England defined her position on the Right of Search question.[12] The anti-slavery men presented several bills to amend and strengthen previous laws;[13] they sought, for instance, in vain to regulate the Texan trade, through which numbers of slaves indirectly reached the United States.[14] Presidents and consuls earnestly recommended legislation to restrict the clearances of vessels bound on slave-trading voyages, and to hinder the facility with which slavers obtained fraudulent papers.[15] Only one such bill succeeded in passing the Senate, and that was dropped in the House.[16]

The only legislation of this period was confined to a few appropriation bills. Only one of these acts, that of 1823, appropriating $50,000,[17] was designed materially to aid in the suppression of the trade, all the others relating to expenses incurred after violations. After 1823 the appropriations dwindled, being made at intervals of one, two, and three years, down to 1834, when the amount was $5,000. No further appropriations were made until 1842, when a few thousands above an unexpended surplus were appropriated. In 1843 $5,000 were given, and finally, in 1846, $25,000 were secured; but this was the last sum obtainable until 1856.[18] Nearly all of these meagre appropriations went toward reimbursing Southern plantation owners for the care and support of illegally imported Africans, and the rest to the maintenance of the African agency. Suspiciously large sums were paid for the first purpose, considering the fact that such Africans were always worked hard by those to whom they were farmed out, and often "disappeared" while in their hands. In the accounts we nevertheless find many items like that of $20,286.98 for the maintenance of Negroes imported on the "Ramirez;"[19] in 1827, $5,442.22 for the "bounty, subsistence, clothing, medicine," etc., of fifteen Africans;[20] in 1835, $3,613 for the support of thirty-eight slaves for two months (including a bill of $1,038 for medical attendance).[21]

The African agency suffered many vicissitudes. The first agent, Bacon, who set out early in 1820, was authorized by President Monroe "to form an establishment on the island of Sherbro, or elsewhere on the coast of Africa," and to build barracks for three hundred persons. He was, however, warned "not to connect your agency with the views or plans of the Colonization Society, with which, under the law, the Government of the United States has no concern." Bacon soon died, and was followed during the next four years by Winn and Ayres; they succeeded in establishing a government agency on Cape Mesurado, in conjunction with that of the Colonization Society. The agent of that Society, Jehudi Ashmun, became after 1822, the virtual head of the colony; he fortified and enlarged it, and laid the foundations of an independent community. The succeeding government agents came to be merely official representatives of the United States, and the distribution of free rations for liberated Africans ceased in 1827.

Between 1819 and 1830 two hundred and fifty-two recaptured Africans were sent to the agency, and $264,710 were expended. The property of the government at the agency was valued at $18,895. From 1830 to 1840, nearly $20,000 more were expended, chiefly for the agents' salaries. About 1840 the appointment of an agent ceased, and the colony became gradually self-supporting and independent. It was proclaimed as the Republic of Liberia in 1847.[22]

77. Imperfect Application of the Laws. In reviewing efforts toward the suppression of the slave-trade from 1820 to 1850, it must be remembered that nearly every cabinet had a strong, if not a predominating, Southern element, and that consequently the efforts of the executive were powerfully influenced by the changing attitude of the South. Naturally, under such circumstances, the government displayed little activity and no enthusiasm in the work. In 1824 a single vessel of the Gulf squadron was occasionally sent to the African coast to return by the route usually followed by the slavers; no wonder that "none of these or any other of our public ships have found vessels engaged in the slave trade under the flag of the United States, ... although it is known that the trade still exists to a most lamentable extent."[23] Indeed, all that an American slaver need do was to run up a Spanish or a Portuguese flag, to be absolutely secure from all attack or inquiry on the part of United States vessels. Even this desultory method of suppression was not regular: in 1826 "no vessel has been despatched to the coast of Africa for several months,"[24] and from that time until 1839 this country probably had no slave-trade police upon the seas, except in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1839 increasing violations led to the sending of two fast-sailing vessels to the African coast, and these were kept there more or less regularly;[25] but even after the signing of the treaty of 1842 the Secretary of the Navy reports: "On the coast of Africa we have no squadron. The small appropriation of the present year was believed to be scarcely sufficient."[26] Between 1843 and 1850 the coast squadron varied from two to six vessels, with from thirty to ninety-eight guns;[27] "but the force habitually and actively engaged in cruizing on the ground frequented by slavers has probably been less by one-fourth, if we consider the size of the ships employed and their withdrawal for purposes of recreation and health, and the movement of the reliefs, whose arrival does not correspond exactly with the departure of the vessels whose term of service has expired."[28] The reports of the navy show that in only four of the eight years mentioned was the fleet, at the time of report, at the stipulated size of eighty guns; and at times it was much below this, even as late as 1848, when only two vessels are reported on duty along the African coast.[29] As the commanders themselves acknowledged, the squadron was too small and the cruising-ground too large to make joint cruising effective.[30]

The same story comes from the Brazil station: "Nothing effectual can be done towards stopping the slave trade, as our squadron is at present organized," wrote the consul at Rio Janeiro in 1847; "when it is considered that the Brazil station extends from north of the equator to Cape Horn on this continent, and includes a great part of Africa south of the equator, on both sides of the Cape of Good Hope, it must be admitted that one frigate and one brig is a very insufficient force to protect American commerce, and repress the participation in the slave trade by our own vessels."[31] In the Gulf of Mexico cruisers were stationed most of the time, although even here there were at times urgent representations that the scarcity or the absence of such vessels gave the illicit trade great license.[32]

Owing to this general negligence of the government, and also to its anxiety on the subject of the theoretic Right of Search, many officials were kept in a state of chronic deception in regard to the trade. The enthusiasm of commanders was dampened by the lack of latitude allowed and by the repeated insistence in their orders on the non-existence of a Right of Search.[33] When one commander, realizing that he could not cover the trading-track with his fleet, requested English commanders to detain suspicious American vessels until one of his vessels came up, the government annulled the agreement as soon as it reached their ears, rebuked him, and the matter was alluded to in Congress long after with horror.[34] According to the orders of cruisers, only slavers with slaves actually on board could be seized. Consequently, fully equipped slavers would sail past the American fleet, deliberately make all preparations for shipping a cargo, then, when the English were not near, "sell" the ship to a Spaniard, hoist the Spanish flag, and again sail gayly past the American fleet with a cargo of slaves. An English commander reported: "The officers of the United States' navy are extremely active and zealous in the cause, and no fault can be attributed to them, but it is greatly to be lamented that this blemish should in so great a degree nullify our endeavours."[35]

78. Responsibility of the Government. Not only did the government thus negatively favor the slave-trade, but also many conscious, positive acts must be attributed to a spirit hostile to the proper enforcement of the slave-trade laws. In cases of doubt, when the law needed executive interpretation, the decision was usually in favor of the looser construction of the law; the trade from New Orleans to Mobile was, for instance, declared not to be coastwise trade, and consequently, to the joy of the Cuban smugglers, was left utterly free and unrestricted.[36] After the conquest of Mexico, even vessels bound to California, by the way of Cape Horn, were allowed to clear coastwise, thus giving our flag to "the slave-pirates of the whole world."[37] Attorney-General Nelson declared that the selling to a slave-trader of an American vessel, to be delivered on the coast of Africa, was not aiding or abetting the slave-trade.[38] So easy was it for slavers to sail that corruption among officials was hinted at. "There is certainly a want of proper vigilance at Havana," wrote Commander Perry in 1844, "and perhaps at the ports of the United States;" and again, in the same year, "I cannot but think that the custom-house authorities in the United States are not sufficiently rigid in looking after vessels of suspicious character."[39]

In the courts it was still next to impossible to secure the punishment of the most notorious slave-trader. In 1847 a consul writes: "The slave power in this city [i.e., Rio Janeiro] is extremely great, and a consul doing his duty needs to be supported kindly and effectually at home. In the case of the 'Fame,' where the vessel was diverted from the business intended by her owners and employed in the slave trade—both of which offences are punishable with death, if I rightly read the laws—I sent home the two mates charged with these offences, for trial, the first mate to Norfolk, the second mate to Philadelphia. What was done with the first mate I know not. In the case of the man sent to Philadelphia, Mr. Commissioner Kane states that a clear prima facie case is made out, and then holds him to bail in the sum of one thousand dollars, which would be paid by any slave trader in Rio, on the presentation of a draft. In all this there is little encouragement for exertion."[40] Again, the "Perry" in 1850 captured a slaver which was about to ship 1,800 slaves. The captain admitted his guilt, and was condemned in the United States District Court at New York. Nevertheless, he was admitted to bail of $5,000; this being afterward reduced to $3,000, he forfeited it and escaped. The mate was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary.[41] Also several slavers sent home to the United States by the British, with clear evidence of guilt, escaped condemnation through technicalities.[42]

79. Activity of the Slave-Trade, 1820-1850. The enhanced price of slaves throughout the American slave market, brought about by the new industrial development and the laws against the slave-trade, was the irresistible temptation that drew American capital and enterprise into that traffic. In the United States, in spite of the large interstate traffic, the average price of slaves rose from about $325 in 1840, to $360 in 1850, and to $500 in 1860.[43] Brazil and Cuba offered similar inducements to smugglers, and the American flag was ready to protect such pirates. As a result, the American slave-trade finally came to be carried on principally by United States capital, in United States ships, officered by United States citizens, and under the United States flag.

Executive reports repeatedly acknowledged this fact. In 1839 "a careful revision of these laws" is recommended by the President, in order that "the integrity and honor of our flag may be carefully preserved."[44] In June, 1841, the President declares: "There is reason to believe that the traffic is on the increase," and advocates "vigorous efforts."[45] His message in December of the same year acknowledges: "That the American flag is grossly abused by the abandoned and profligate of other nations is but too probable."[46] The special message of 1845 explains at length that "it would seem" that a regular policy of evading the laws is carried on: American vessels with the knowledge of the owners are chartered by notorious slave dealers in Brazil, aided by English capitalists, with this intent.[47] The message of 1849 "earnestly" invites the attention of Congress "to an amendment of our existing laws relating to the African slave-trade, with a view to the effectual suppression of that barbarous traffic. It is not to be denied," continues the message, "that this trade is still, in part, carried on by means of vessels built in the United States, and owned or navigated by some of our citizens."[48] Governor Buchanan of Liberia reported in 1839: "The chief obstacle to the success of the very active measures pursued by the British government for the suppression of the slave-trade on the coast, is the American flag. Never was the proud banner of freedom so extensively used by those pirates upon liberty and humanity, as at this season."[49] One well-known American slaver was boarded fifteen times and twice taken into port, but always escaped by means of her papers.[50] Even American officers report that the English are doing all they can, but that the American flag protects the trade.[51] The evidence which literally poured in from our consuls and ministers at Brazil adds to the story of the guilt of the United States.[52] It was proven that the participation of United States citizens in the trade was large and systematic. One of the most notorious slave merchants of Brazil said: "I am worried by the Americans, who insist upon my hiring their vessels for slave-trade."[53] Minister Proffit stated, in 1844, that the "slave-trade is almost entirely carried on under our flag, in American-built vessels."[54] So, too, in Cuba: the British commissioners affirm that American citizens were openly engaged in the traffic; vessels arrived undisguised at Havana from the United States, and cleared for Africa as slavers after an alleged sale.[55] The American consul, Trist, was proven to have consciously or unconsciously aided this trade by the issuance of blank clearance papers.[56]

The presence of American capital in these enterprises, and the connivance of the authorities, were proven in many cases and known in scores. In 1837 the English government informed the United States that from the papers of a captured slaver it appeared that the notorious slave-trading firm, Blanco and Carballo of Havana, who owned the vessel, had correspondents in the United States: "at Baltimore, Messrs. Peter Harmony and Co., in New York, Robert Barry, Esq."[57] The slaver "Martha" of New York, captured by the "Perry," contained among her papers curious revelations of the guilt of persons in America who were little suspected.[58] The slaver "Prova," which was allowed to lie in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and refit, was afterwards captured with two hundred and twenty-five slaves on board.[59] The real reason that prevented many belligerent Congressmen from pressing certain search claims against England lay in the fact that the unjustifiable detentions had unfortunately revealed so much American guilt that it was deemed wiser to let the matter end in talk. For instance, in 1850 Congress demanded information as to illegal searches, and President Fillmore's report showed the uncomfortable fact that, of the ten American ships wrongly detained by English men-of-war, nine were proven red-handed slavers.[60]

The consul at Havana reported, in 1836, that whole cargoes of slaves fresh from Africa were being daily shipped to Texas in American vessels, that 1,000 had been sent within a few months, that the rate was increasing, and that many of these slaves "can scarcely fail to find their way into the United States." Moreover, the consul acknowledged that ships frequently cleared for the United States in ballast, taking on a cargo at some secret point.[61] When with these facts we consider the law facilitating "recovery" of slaves from Texas,[62] the repeated refusals to regulate the Texan trade, and the shelving of a proposed congressional investigation into these matters,[63] conjecture becomes a practical certainty. It was estimated in 1838 that 15,000 Africans were annually taken to Texas, and "there are even grounds for suspicion that there are other places ... where slaves are introduced."[64] Between 1847 and 1853 the slave smuggler Drake had a slave depot in the Gulf, where sometimes as many as 1,600 Negroes were on hand, and the owners were continually importing and shipping. "The joint-stock company," writes this smuggler, "was a very extensive one, and connected with leading American and Spanish mercantile houses. Our island[65] was visited almost weekly, by agents from Cuba, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Orleans.... The seasoned and instructed slaves were taken to Texas, or Florida, overland, and to Cuba, in sailing-boats. As no squad contained more than half a dozen, no difficulty was found in posting them to the United States, without discovery, and generally without suspicion.... The Bay Island plantation sent ventures weekly to the Florida Keys. Slaves were taken into the great American swamps, and there kept till wanted for the market. Hundreds were sold as captured runaways from the Florida wilderness. We had agents in every slave State; and our coasters were built in Maine, and came out with lumber. I could tell curious stories ... of this business of smuggling Bozal negroes into the United States. It is growing more profitable every year, and if you should hang all the Yankee merchants engaged in it, hundreds would fill their places."[66] Inherent probability and concurrent testimony confirm the substantial truth of such confessions. For instance, one traveller discovers on a Southern plantation Negroes who can speak no English.[67] The careful reports of the Quakers "apprehend that many [slaves] are also introduced into the United States."[68] Governor Mathew of the Bahama Islands reports that "in more than one instance, Bahama vessels with coloured crews have been purposely wrecked on the coast of Florida, and the crews forcibly sold." This was brought to the notice of the United States authorities, but the district attorney of Florida could furnish no information.[69]

Such was the state of the slave-trade in 1850, on the threshold of the critical decade which by a herculean effort was destined finally to suppress it.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Beer, Geschichte des Welthandels im 19^{ten} Jahrhundert, II. 67.

[2] A list of these inventions most graphically illustrates this advance:—

1738, John Jay, fly-shuttle. John Wyatt, spinning by rollers. 1748, Lewis Paul, carding-machine. 1760, Robert Kay, drop-box. 1769, Richard Arkwright, water-frame and throstle. James Watt, steam-engine. 1772, James Lees, improvements on carding-machine. 1775, Richard Arkwright, series of combinations. 1779, Samuel Compton, mule. 1785, Edmund Cartwright, power-loom. 1803-4, Radcliffe and Johnson, dressing-machine. 1817, Roberts, fly-frame. 1818, William Eaton, self-acting frame. 1825-30, Roberts, improvements on mule.

Cf. Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 116-231; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., article "Cotton."

[3] Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture, p. 215. A bale weighed from 375 lbs. to 400 lbs.

[4] The prices cited are from Newmarch and Tooke, and refer to the London market. The average price in 1855-60 was about 7d.

[5] From United States census reports.

[6] Cf. United States census reports; and Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom.

[7] Cf. United States census reports; and Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom.

[8] As early as 1836 Calhoun declared that he should ever regret that the term "piracy" had been applied to the slave-trade in our laws: Benton, Abridgment of Debates, XII. 718.

[9] Governor J.H. Hammond of South Carolina, in Letters to Clarkson, No. 1, p. 2.

[10] In 1826 Forsyth of Georgia attempted to have a bill passed abolishing the African agency, and providing that the Africans imported be disposed of in some way that would entail no expense on the public treasury: Home Journal, 19 Cong. 1 sess. p. 258. In 1828 a bill was reported to the House to abolish the agency and make the Colonization Society the agents, if they would agree to the terms. The bill was so amended as merely to appropriate money for suppressing the slave-trade: Ibid., 20 Cong. 1 sess., House Bill No. 190.

[11] Ibid., pp. 121, 135; 20 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 58-9, 84, 215.

[12] Congressional Globe, 27 Cong. 3 sess. pp. 328, 331-6.

[13] Cf. Mercer's bill, House Journal, 21 Cong. 1 sess. p. 512; also Strange's two bills, Senate Journal, 25 Cong. 3 sess. pp. 200, 313; 26 Cong. 1 sess., Senate Bill No. 123.

[14] Senate Journal, 25 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 297-8, 300.

[15] Senate Doc, 28 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 217, p. 19; Senate Exec. Doc., 31 Cong. 2 sess. II. No. 6, pp. 3, 10, etc.; 33 Cong. 1 sess. VIII. No. 47, pp. 5-6; 34 Cong. 1 sess. XV. No. 99, p. 80; House Journal, 26 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 117-8; cf. Ibid., 20 Cong. 1 sess. p. 650, etc.; 21 Cong. 2 sess. p. 194; 27 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 31, 184; House Doc., 29 Cong. 1 sess. III. No. 43, p. 11; House Exec. Doc., 31 Cong. 1 sess. III. pt. 1, No. 5, pp. 7-8.

[16] Senate Journal, 26 Cong. 1 sess., Senate Bill No. 335; House Journal, 26 Cong. 1 sess. pp. 1138, 1228, 1257.

[17] Statutes at Large, III. 764.

[18] Cf. above, Chapter VIII. p. 125.

[19] Cf. Report of the Secretary of the Navy, 1827.

[20] Ibid.

[21] House Reports, 24 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 223.

[22] This account is taken exclusively from government documents: Amer. State Papers, Naval, III. Nos. 339, 340, 357, 429 E; IV. Nos. 457 R (1 and 2), 486 H, I, p. 161 and 519 R, 564 P, 585 P; House Reports, 19 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 65; House Doc., 19 Cong. 2 sess. IV. No. 69; 21 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 42-3, 211-8; 22 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 45, 272-4; 22 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 48, 229; 23 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 1, pp. 238, 269; 23 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 315, 363; 24 Cong, 1 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 336, 378; 24 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 450, 506; 25 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 3, pp. 771, 850; 26 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 534, 612; 26 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 405, 450. It is probable that the agent became eventually the United States consul and minister; I cannot however cite evidence for this supposition.