of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight."[65] The debates in the Senate were not reported. Those in the House were prolonged and bitter, and hinged especially on the disposal of the slaves, the punishment of offenders, and the coast-trade. Men were continually changing their votes, and the bill see-sawed backward and forward, in committee and out, until the House was thoroughly worn out. On the whole, the strong anti-slavery men, like Bidwell and Sloan, were outgeneraled by Southerners, like Early and Williams; and, considering the immense moral backing of the anti-slavery party from the Revolutionary fathers down, the bill of 1807 can hardly be regarded as a great anti-slavery victory.
60. Enforcement of the Act. The period so confidently looked forward to by the constitutional fathers had at last arrived; the slave-trade was prohibited, and much oratory and poetry were expended in celebration of the event. In the face of this, let us see how the Act of 1807 was enforced and what it really accomplished. It is noticeable, in the first place, that there was no especial set of machinery provided for the enforcement of this act. The work fell first to the Secretary of the Treasury, as head of the customs collection. Then, through the activity of cruisers, the Secretary of the Navy gradually came to have oversight, and eventually the whole matter was lodged with him, although the Departments of State and War were more or less active on different occasions. Later, at the advent of the Lincoln government, the Department of the Interior was charged with the enforcement of the slave-trade laws. It would indeed be surprising if, amid so much uncertainty and shifting of responsibility, the law were not poorly enforced. Poor enforcement, moreover, in the years 1808 to 1820 meant far more than at almost any other period; for these years were,
all over the European world, a time of stirring economic change, and the set which forces might then take would in a later period be unchangeable without a cataclysm. Perhaps from 1808 to 1814, in the midst of agitation and war, there was some excuse for carelessness. From 1814 on, however, no such palliation existed, and the law was probably enforced as the people who made it wished it enforced.
Most of the Southern States rather tardily passed the necessary supplementary acts disposing of illegally imported Africans. A few appear not to have passed any. Some of these laws, like the Alabama-Mississippi Territory Act of 1815,[66] directed such Negroes to be "sold by the proper officer of the court, to the highest bidder, at public auction, for ready money." One-half the proceeds went to the informer or to the collector of customs, the other half to the public treasury. Other acts, like that of North Carolina in 1816,[67] directed the Negroes to "be sold and disposed of for the use of the state." One-fifth of the proceeds went to the informer. The Georgia Act of 1817[68] directed that the slaves be either sold or given to the Colonization Society for transportation, providing the society reimburse the State for all expense incurred, and pay for the transportation. In this manner, machinery of somewhat clumsy build and varying pattern was provided for the carrying out of the national act.
61. Evidence of the Continuance of the Trade. Undoubtedly, the Act of 1807 came very near being a dead letter. The testimony supporting this view is voluminous. It consists of presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements made on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies.
"When I was young," writes Mr. Fowler of Connecticut, "the slave-trade was still carried on, by Connecticut shipmasters and Merchant adventurers, for the supply of southern ports. This trade was carried on by the consent o
f the Southern States, under the provisions of the Federal Constitution, until 1808, and, after that time, clandestinely. There was a good deal of conversation on the subject, in private circles." Other States were said to be even more involved than Connecticut.[69] The African Society of London estimated that, down to 1816, fifteen of the sixty thousand slaves annually taken from Africa were shipped by Americans. "Notwithstanding the prohibitory act of America, which was passed in 1807, ships bearing the American flag continued to trade for slaves until 1809, when, in consequence of a decision in the English prize appeal courts, which rendered American slave ships liable to capture and condemnation, that flag suddenly disappeared from the coast. Its place was almost instantaneously supplied by the Spanish flag, which, with one or two exceptions, was now seen for the first time on the African coast, engaged in covering the slave trade. This sudden substitution of the Spanish for the American flag seemed to confirm what was established in a variety of instances by more direct testimony, that the slave trade, which now, for the first time, assumed a Spanish dress, was in reality only the trade of other nations in disguise."[70]
So notorious did the participation of Americans in the traffic become, that President Madison informed Congress in his message, December 5, 1810, that "it appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced the interdiction in force against this criminal conduct, will doubtless be felt by Congress, in devising further means of suppressing the evil."[71] The Secretary of the Navy wrote the same year to Charleston, South Carolina: "I hear, not without great concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of slaves has been violated in frequent instances, near St. Mary's."[72] Testimony as to violations of the law and
suggestions for improving it also came in from district attorneys.[73]
The method of introducing Negroes was simple. A slave smuggler says: "After resting a few days at St. Augustine, ... I agreed to accompany Diego on a land trip through the United States, where a kaffle of negroes was to precede us, for whose disposal the shrewd Portuguese had already made arrangements with my uncle's consignees. I soon learned how readily, and at what profits, the Florida negroes were sold into the neighboring American States. The kaffle, under charge of negro drivers, was to strike up the Escambia River, and thence cross the boundary into Georgia, where some of our wild Africans were mixed with various squads of native blacks, and driven inland, till sold off, singly or by couples, on the road. At this period [1812], the United States had declared the African slave trade illegal, and passed stringent laws to prevent the importation of negroes; yet the Spanish possessions were thriving on this inland exchange of negroes and mulattoes; Florida was a sort of nursery for slave-breeders, and many American citizens grew rich by trafficking in Guinea negroes, and smuggling them continually, in small parties, through the southern United States. At the time I mention, the business was a lively one, owing to the war then going on between the States and England, and the unsettled condition of affairs on the border."[74]