The American Slave Trade (Spears)/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
THE SLAVERS OUTLAWED
British Abolitionists and Their Work — After a Crusade of only Twenty Years, They Outlawed a Trade that, from a Business Point of View, had been the most Profitable in the United Kingdom — The Slave-trade and the American Constitution — Inauguration of the System of Compromises that Led to the Civil War — Slave-trade Legislation of the States — The Act of March 2, 1807.
Although the British-American colonies, from Massachusetts to Georgia, had become the United States of America before anything was done through a love of humanity for the legal abolition of the traffic, it is necessary, for the purposes of this history, to consider the progress of the trade, and of its opponents, very much as if no separation had taken place between the colonies and the mother country.
Although the notable decision that right should prevail in England, as far as the negro Somerset was concerned, was made in 1772, it was not until 1787 that a "Society for the Abolition of the African Slavetrade," was formed in London. However, an abolition association, or committee without special organization, was formed as early as 1783. The immediate cause of its formation was the story of the slaver Zong already related.
The first meeting of the committee was held July 7, 1783, ‘‘to consider what steps they should take for the relief and liberation of the Negro slaves in the West Indies, and for the discouragement of the Slave-trade on the coast of Africa"' The result of the agitation of this private committee was the formation on May 22, 1787, of the "Society for the Abolition of the African Slave-trade,"? of which Granville Sharp was the chairman, and Thomas Clarkson was, next to Sharp, the most active member. In Parliament William Wilberforce became the champion of the society, chiefly through the work of Clarkson. Of the standing of the supporters of the trade we have a sufficient indication in the fact that their leader was His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV.
How the society held meetings and published appeals, and how the slavers were forced to reply but failed to show convincing arguments, cannot be told here. But in the meantime David Hartley, a member of Parliament from Hull, made a motion in the House, in 1776, "That the slave-trade is contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man." In support of this resolution he laid on the table of the House some of the irons used in securing slaves on the slave-ships. Sir George Saville seconded the motion, but, of course, it failed even of a respectful hearing.
In 1783 an effort was made to regulate the slavetrade, and it was then the abolition committee began its work. The bill of 1783 failed, but because of the continually increasing agitation by the abolitionists "*the King by an order in council, dated February llth, 1788, directed that a committee of the Privy Council should sit as a board of trade To take into their consideration the present state of the African trade, particularly as far as related to the practice and manner of purchasing or obtaining slaves on the coast of Africa, and the importation or sale thereof'" in the markets of the West.
On May 9, 1788, the first real discussion of the slave trade was heard in Parliament. Mr. Pitt moved a resolution to the effect that a full discussion of the trade be had in the next session, and his motion prevailed.
However, Sir William Dolben was not satisfied to allow the session to close without doing something to relieve the slaves, and on May 21, 1788, asked leave to bring in a bill which was designed "only to limit the number of persons to be put on board to the tonnage of the vessel which was to carry them, in order to prevent them from being crowded too closely together; to secure them good and sufficient provisions, and to take cognizance of other matters which related to their health and accommodation; and this only till Parliament could enter into the general merits of the question."
The slavers at once protested that any restriction would ruin the trade, but meantime Mr. Pitt had sent Captain Parry, of the Royal Navy, to Liverpool to measure the slavers there, and his measurements showed that many slavers had made enormous profits where fewer slaves had been carried than the contemplated bill would permit. It was now that the people learned how little space was allowed to the slaves crowded into the slaver's hold.
On June 17, 1788, the bill passed the House of Commons by a vote of fifty-six to five. By its terms slavers were to be allowed to carry "five men to every three tons in every ship under one hundred and fifty tons burthen [according to the custom-house measurement] which had the space of five feet between the decks, and three men to two tons in every vessel beyond one hundred and fifty tons which had equal accommodation in point of height between the decks."
In the House of Lords, in spite of increased opposition, the bill was amended to compel the carrying of regularly educated surgeons on every slaver and to give bounties to slaver captains who lost no more than two per centum of the slaves during the Middle Passage. Finally, on Thursday, July 10, 1788, "the first bill that ever put fetters upon that barbarous and destructive monster, The Slave-trade," was sent to the King. And on the next day the King signed it and it became the law of the realm.
The Parliamentary investigation of the trade followed, and this gave the public a full knowledge of its horrors. As already said, these horrors grew up only because of the blind greed of the slavers, They might perhaps, by giving the slaves good passenger accommodations, have long delayed the fate that was at hand. But blind they were. On April 27, 1792, Parliament passed a resolution by a vote of one hundred and fifty-one to one hundred and thirty-two for the abolition of the trade in 1796. In the House of Lords it failed.
In 1793 the abolitionists failed in the Commons as well as the House of Lords. In 1794 the measure was carried in the Commons but lost in the upper house. Then an effort was made to keep British ships from supplying foreigners, and that failed. A supreme effort seems to have been made in 1799, but that failed also, and thereafter nothing of importance was done in Parliament until 1804, which was fixed upon for renewed exertions. A bill then passed the Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords.
However, in 1805 "an order in council prohibited the importation of negroes to the newly conquered colonies of the British Crown." Following this "Sir A. Pigott, the Attorney-General, as an officer of the Crown, brought in a bill on March 31, 1806, the first object of which was to give effect" to that order. The second object was "to prohibit British subjects from being engaged in importing slaves into the colonies of any foreign power." A third object was "to prohibit British subjects and British capital from being employed in carrying on a slave-trade in foreign ships," and to prevent foreign slavers fitting out in British ports. This bill, "the first which dismembered this cruel trade," passed the Commons at once, and the Lords on May 7th, when it was signed by the King. The triamph of Humanity was at hand. Parliament was dissolved in November, 1806, but public opinion had so far changed that Roscoe, a noted abolitionist, could be sent from Liverpool, the chief slaver port, to the new Parliament that was soon convened. It was a short-lived Parliament, but a bill was passed declaring that no vessel should clear out for slaves from any port within the British dominions after May 1, 1807, and that no slave should be landed in the colonies after March 1, 1808. It received the King's signature on March 25, 1807. The fight that was organized in 1787, when the abolitionists formed their society for outlawing the trade, was won.
This was not the first time that the trade had been prohibited by legal enactment in an English-speaking state, but it was the first time such a law had been made from humane motives only.
To consider the course of events on our side of the Atlantic, it appears that "the slave-trade was hardly touched upon in the Congress of the Confederation." It was mentioned only in connection with "the counting of slaves as well as of freemen in the apportionment of taxes;" but when the articles were finally adopted a law was enacted by which fugitive slaves, captured on the sea, or on the beach below high-water mark, were to be free unless claimed by the owner!
From the adoption of the articles of confederation until it was found that those articles were utterly inadequate to their proposed object of holding the States together as a nation, the slave-trade was not an object of national legislation. But when the convention which adopted the present Constitution met, the subject of the slave-trade had a fair discussion, though it must be said that no one foresaw the extent to which slavery was to grow. On the contrary, the people as a whole believed that it was a dying institution, destined speedily to take itself from the nation.
A fair examination of the discussions in this convention shows that the trade would have been prohibited in the Constitution but for the delegates from Georgia and South Carolina. Delegates from Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia all denounced the traffic, even though all of them were slave-holders. Mason, of Virginia, called it "infernal." Georgia was ruled by the feeling in favor of slavery that had come down from the days when her financial interests had suffered for want of slaves under the proprietary government.
In South Carolina the people were probably influenced chiefly by what may be called the States' rights doctrine. They did not then need imported slaves. In fact, of their own will, they prohibited the traffic temporarily afterward. It was, apparently, the principle of surrendering the control of the trade to the general government to which they objected.
When the two States refused to join the confederacy, if the slave-trade were definitely prohibited, Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, said: "It is better to let the Southern States import slaves than to part with those States."
Herein was laid the foundation of the national legislation on slavery that was continued until it culminated in the civil war. It is certain that but for the compromises then inaugurated we should have had two nations instead of one formed from the original colonies.
In view of this undisputed fact, and in view of the history of the nation since that date, what does the reader think of the assertion of principle made by Granville Sharp, when he said:
"Right ought to be adopted and maintained on all occasions, without regard to consequences, either probable or possible?"
And here let it be remembered that the slave question was discussed in the Constitutional Convention chiefly from an "economic standpoint," and that the word "slave" was carefully excluded from the instrument for the sake of appearance.
Not to dwell too long on a topic that is humiliating to every patriot, we find that the slave-trade matter was disposed of as follows in the Constitution:
The opponents of the trade provided for a date when the trade might be prohibited, and they saw that a negro was described as a Person, not as an animal or real estate. This was something. People had been found to deny that a negro was a man and a brother, though the fact that he was a half-brother to some of the leading white citizens of the nation was patent enough.
Meantime the States were able, both under the confederation and under the Constitution, to deal with the slave-trade and slavery as they pleased. The State legislation was based chiefly on economic considerations, but the effect of the Declaration of Independence is also seen. New York, as a State, appears to have taken the lead in prohibitory legislation. On February 28, 1788, she enacted that no slave should be imported within her boundaries, nor should any be purchased in the State for export. The penalty was £100.
Massachusetts followed, on March 25, 1788, and prohibited to her citizens the African slave-trade. There was nothing in the act to prevent carrying slaves from any other continent.
Pennsylvania four days later was more sweeping, for it prohibited the trade "to, from, or between Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, or any places or countries whatever."
South Carolina, during this year, prohibited the trade for a period (until January 1, 1793). Delaware followed with prohibition on February 3, 1789.
On May 13, 1789, it was proposed in Congress to tax the importation of slaves at $10 a head. The national government needed money badly, but this proposal to share in the profits of the trade was never carried.
The first real step toward a national restriction of the trade under the Constitution was taken on March 23, 1790. The abolitionists had been stirring up the menagerie — if one may be allowed the only term graphically descriptive of the members in their ordinary motives and doings in connection with disagreeable topics. Petition after petition on the subject of slavery and the trade had been sent in, and Congress had continued the policy of evasion inaugurated at the Constitutional Convention. But on that date the House declared that Congress have authority to restrain the citizens of the United States from carrying on the African trade, for the purpose of supplying foreigners with slaves, and of providing, by proper regulations, for the humane treatment, during their passage, of slaves imported by the said citizens into the States admitting such importations" Further, that Congress have authority to prohibit foreigners from fitting out vessels in any port of the United States for transporting persons from Africa to any foreign port."
The vote was twenty-nine to twenty-five, and even that was obtained only because the same resolutions declared that "Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within the States," and that ‘the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit cannot be prohibited by Congress prior to the year one thousand, eight hundred and eight."
Four years passed before anything was done under these declared powers. The ills of the slave-trade as described by the witnesses before the English Parliament became widely known in this country, and the abolitionists, led by the persistent Quakers, kept nagging Congress with petitions for the abolition of slavery, but Congress went on, brushing these aside, until the shadow of the storm raised in Hayti by Toussaint L'Ouverture darkened the southern horizon. The slaves of the great island just east of Cuba arose, and in a day, so to speak, had asserted and maintained the principle that all men are born free and equal. Their rising, like that of the oppressed in France, was marked with the violence that power suddenly released from restraint always shows. Many and frightful were the deeds of bloodshed and rapine, and the thought of these and of the real cause of them made the white American legislators cower.
"A Quaker petition for a law against the transport traffic in slaves was received without a murmur in 1794, and on March 22 of that year the first national act against the slave-trade became a law."
The student finds, as he reads through the great mass of American works on slavery printed since that day, that many of the writers announce, with a flourish of Old Glory, that the United States was the first nation to prohibit the slave-trade. They think this act prohibited the trade.
The truth is the act was merely "to prohibit the carrying on the Slave-trade from the United States to any foreign place or country" and to prohibit fitting out slavers here fora foreign country. It was merely an act in mild restraint of the trade — so mild, in fact, that it never injured the slavers to the extent of a dollar.
Here the matter rested for six years — save only that by the act of April 3, 1798, "in relation to the Mississippi territory," to which the constitutional provision did not extend, the introduction of slaves was forbidden, under severe penalties, and every slave imported contrary to the act was to be entitled to freedom. But in 1800 a petition of Pennsylvania free negroes for a revision of the laws relating to the slave-trade, the fugitive slave law, and for gradual emancipation, once more stirred the House to fever heat.
In the debate that followed, Dana, of Connecticut, declared that the petition contained "nothing but a farrago of the French metaphysics of liberty and equality." That from Connecticut!
Brown, of Rhode Island, said: "We want money; we want a navy; we ought therefore to use the means to obtain it.... Why should we see Great Britain getting all the slave-trade to themselves — why may not our country be enriched by that lucrative traffic?"
Congress, however, made it unlawful not only to fit out ships for the foreign slave-trade but to hold any interest, direct or indirect, in foreign slaver voyages. And serving on slavers was prohibited to American citizens. Naval vessels were directed to make prizes of any American slave-ships, and the guilty merchants and crews were to bear, on conviction, an imprisonment of two years as well as a fine of $2,000 for a maximum penalty. The slaves were to be forfeited, but what was to be done with them was not said, although the captors were not to have them.
It was still lawful to import slaves from Africa into any State permitting the trade. On February 28, 1803, a bill became a law which provided for the forfeiture of any ship that should bring into any State, contrary to its laws, "any negro, mulatto, or other person of color" The ship-master violating this law was to be fined $1,000. Curiously enough, this law was passed on presentation of a petition from North Carolina, Some Haytian negroes had landed at Wilmington, and the North Carolinians were frightened by the thought that the Haytians were emissaries come to preach the Haytian ideas of liberty and equality.
Nevertheless the great profits in cotton planting, after Whitney invented the cotton gin, and was robbed of his rights, caused a reaction in favor of the slave-trade. To obtain more negroes for the cotton-field, South Carolina repealed her law prohibiting slave imports. What South Carolina did openly, other States did sneakingly; they smuggled slaves.
About that time the Louisiana Territory was under consideration in Congress, and many slaves were wanted there. Harper, of South Carolina, got a bill passed compelling the planters in Louisiana to import through "the limits of the United States;" the practical effect of the law being to make all slavers enter their cargoes at Charleston, after which they were at liberty to proceed to New Orleans. As a result of this opening of the traffic in South Carolina, two hundred and two ships brought 39,075 slaves from Africa to Charleston during the years 1804 to 1807, inclusive. According to the official returns of the custom house as gathered by Senator Smith, of that State, and reported to Congress, these ships were divided as follows: "From Connecticut, 1; Boston, 1; Norfolk, 2; Baltimore, 4; Rhode Island, 59; Charleston, 61; Sweden, 1; France, 3; Great Britain, 70." There were only sixty-one ships nominally hailing from Northern ports engaged in the trade. But when one looks to see who reaped the profits, it appears that of the consignees of these slavers "88 were natives of Rhode Island, 13 of Charleston, 10 of France, and 91 of Great Britain."
Rhode Island passed in October, 1787, an act to prevent the importation of slaves into her own territory and to encourage the abolition of slavery in the State. Importation of slaves was prohibited under penalty of a fine of £100 per negro, and £1,000 per ship, but there was nothing in her legislation, or in any other legislation then extant, to prevent her shipowners reaping the profits of the open trade to South Carolina. It was right hard work to induce legislators in those days to shut off absolutely a business wherein a man could make $90,000 profit in one round voyage of a ship worth less than $10,000.
However, as the year 1808 drew nigh, legislation of importance was had. Congress had assumed that it had the right to prohibit the trade beginning with that year, and President Jefferson in his message of December 2, 1806, congratulated Congress "on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally" to prohibit the slavetrade. The next day — December 3 — Bradley, of Vermont, introduced the bill that became the act of March 2, 1807.
The first part of it considered was the disposal of the slaves in vessels to be captured while attempting to bring slaves in — that the ship-owners would violate the law was taken as a matter of course. The antislavery men wanted the negroes so captured to be free, but were willing to have them indentured, even for life. This was asking more than could be obtained. The fear of having free blacks turned loose in slave-holding communities — the fear that the free blacks would incite insurrections was too strong.
Of course there were moral objections to selling the slaves, but Congressman Joseph Clay declared "morality has nothing to do with this traffic. It must appear to every man of common-sense that the question can be considered in a commercial point of view only." Worse yet, Congressmen were found to argue for the "decent appearance" of the statute book. They were drabs who feared detection, not the sin.
Of course, in the state of civilization then prevailing the commercial consideration necessarily prevailed. The law (section 4), as at last passed, provided that "neither the importer, nor any person or persons claiming under him, shall hold any right or title whatsoever"? to any negro which might be captured on a slaver coming to the United States, "but the same shall remain subject to any regulations," not contrary to this act, which "the several States or Territories" might make in the matter.
So Congress in trying to stop the traffic provided that the unfortunates brought from Africa should not regain the liberty they had lost through the work of land pirates.
No slaves were smuggled into the Northern region. In the South some States passed no law on this matter, and in others the laws varied widely. The Alabama-Mississippi territory act of 1815 provided for the sale of the negroes by public auction, for cash, to the highest bidder, the informer to have half the proceeds of the sale, and the other half to go to the public treasury. How this law worked will appear later on. In North Carolina (law of 1816) one-fifth of such sales went to the informer. In Georgia the slaves, by the act of December 18, 1817, might be "sold, after giving sixty days' notice in a public gazette," or "if the society for the colonization of free persons of color... will undertake to transport them to Africa... at the sole expense of said society, and shall likewise pay all expenses incurred by the State since they had been captured and condemned, His Excellency the Governor is authorized and requested to aid in promoting the benevolent views of said society."
No national law regulating the disposal of such slaves as these was passed until after the war of 1812.
Another matter considered in connection with this bill introduced on December 3, 1806, was the coastwise traffic between the States. The efforts to prohibit that failed; but the law provided that no ship under forty tons should engage in it. There was no limit to the number of slaves that might be carried, although a voyage from the Chesapeake to New Orleans frequently lasted as long as one from Africa to the West Indies. The penalties provided for the violation of this act included forfeiture of the ship "to the United States"; a fine of $20,000 to be imposed for fitting out a slaver; a fine of $5,000 for aiding in the importation of slaves; a fine of from $1,000 to $10,000, with imprisonment ranging from five to ten years, for taking slaves on board a ship from Africa or any other foreign country, and a fine of $800 for buying a smuggled slave.
Furthermore, the President was authorized to "cause any of the armed vessels of the United States" to be employed "to cruise on any part of the coast of the United States" in search of smugglers. In case any such smuggler was captured the captain, on conviction, was to be imprisoned from two to four years, and fined not to exceed $10,000. The ship was to be forfeited as a prize to the naval ship. The negroes were to be delivered to the State authorities where the slaver prize found a port.
This law has often been mentioned as the result of a great moral victory — and, of course, it did show some progress in American civilization; but when the facts are considered we find that practically it was a mere dead-letter.