disaffection extend beyond the French and Spanish residents. The real menace to the Union of late in this vast region had been rather a lawless and turbulent disposition, ready to manifest itself in reprisals and raids over Spanish and Indian borders, reckless of embroiling the constituted authorities of the nation. It was this disposition which Burr had played upon; and the exposure of his sinister designs brought the West to realize in season that infringements upon a foreign dominion can never be safely left to private discretion. A bootless expedition made about this time, under British protection, to the coast of Caraccas, by Hamilton's earlier confrère, Miranda, with the design of revolutionizing Spanish South America, enforced the same salutary lesson. 1806. Jan. 1807. * Congress assembled for its final session in the midst of the excitement produced by the President's proclamaDec. 1806. tion, whose tidings swept the West like a prairie fire. In the first agitation, which was heightened by reports of Burr's conversations, the Senate passed a bill suspending the habeas corpus, which, upon more quieting information, was dropped in the House. Some of Burr's accomplices, who had been arrested by Wilkinson at New Orleans, arrived at the capital during the winter, but were presently discharged by the Federal courts, no February. connection on their part with an overt act of treason having been shown. By an act of this session the President was authorized in all cases in which he had the right to call out the militia to suppress insurrection and resistance to the laws, to employ for that purpose the military and naval forces of the United States. The suppression of Burr's conspiracy, which became quite apparent as the session advanced, caused general rejoicing, but Burr's capture was not known until after the final adjournment. Jefferson directed the prosecution of his late rival with energy, perhaps vindictively, and the culprit's discharge upon technical grounds deepened his resentment against the Federal * Eaton made a public statement that Burr in an interview with him had boasted that with a trifling force he could turn Congress out of doors, etc., as stated, supra, p. 119. 1806-7. SLAVE-TRADE ABOLISHED. 125 judges. "The framers of our Constitution," he later remarked, "certainly supposed they had guarded as well their government against destruction by treason as their citizens against oppression under pretence of it."* The historical act of this closing session was that which gave the African slave-trade its quietus; our government thus avail: ing itself of the right of constitutional prohibition upon the first opportunity. Under this act importation of foreign slaves into the United States was forbidden from January 1st, 1808. For fitting out a vessel for the slave-trade the penalty was fixed at $20,000, and for taking on board any foreign person of color for sale as a slave within the jurisdiction of the United States at $5000. Whoever transported and sold any such person was liable to five or ten years' imprisonment, and a fine ranging from $1000 to $10,000; and a fine of $800 might be imposed upon any purchaser cognizant of the facts. Any slave-trading vessel might be seized and forfeited to the use of the United States, with prize rights in the captor; the navy aiding in the enforcement of this act. Precautions were taken against evasions of the law in transporting slaves coastwise; no vessel of less than forty tons' burden being permitted to take such persons outside of the inland bays and rivers. On this humane issue Jefferson's administration was in full accord with Wilberforce and the liberal ministry of Fox; for simultaneously with this action of Congress Parliament abolished slavery in the British colonies. This was the last happy conjunction of two nations whose tastes disposed them to friendship, but their rivalries to war. The present Congress had no Wilberforce for this occasion; but public conviction was ripe, and legislators were prepared to act by its direction. Abolition of the slave-trade was an Executive measure, and, like most Executive measures of the day, commanded the majority vote. Abolition societies had already performed their educating work. The Republican party was liberal, and its leader a philanthropist. Hence Northern Republicans in Congress of medium calibre, like * President's Message, October, 1807. Varnum and Bidwell, of Massachusetts, Sloan, of New Jersey, and Findley and Smilie, of Pennsylvania, showed a constancy to principle in which their predecessors of greater ability had been deficient. Southern members acquiesced, but over certain details there was acrimonious discussion. (1.) As to the disposition to be made of negroes taken from those who were found pursuing an unlawful traffic, the House committee, which originally reported the bill, would have forfeited and sold them over; a proceeding which Early, of Georgia, the chairman, likened to selling demijohns of brandy confiscated under the revenue laws. This repulsive proposal the Northern Republicans, with Eppes, of Virginia, freely denounced. Sloan and Bidwell would have given the forfeited black his freedom; and Smilie, as an alternative, would have sent him back to Africa. But the latter plan appeared impracticable; while, as to the former, Southern members, who were wedded to local slavery, thought the introduction of free blacks a greater evil than slavery itself. In the conflict of local regulations Quincy inclined to Early's plan, but the New England sense would not tolerate the idea of creating a public slave-trader in place of the private one. Pitkin, a scholar and Connecticut Federalist, made a strong impression upon the House by declaring himself opposed to any abolition law which should require the United States to put the price of these poor Africans into the public coffers, dealing with them like merchandise; and at his suggestion the plan was broached of indenturing the helpless creatures as apprentices long enough to teach them how to support themselves. Under such a plan, however, there was danger of practical abuse. The final disposition of the subject, as suggested in the Senate, was to prescribe no distinctive treatment, but divesting all title of private ownership leave the captured negro to the operation of local laws in the respective States.* (2.) As to the penalties appropriate to the offence of slavetrading. Punishment by death was first reported in the House. But this was thought too severe; and, at the instance of the Senate, large fines were substituted, together with a term of imprisonment, of which ten years was the maximum. * Annals of Congress, 1806-7. 1806-7. SLAVE-TRADE ABOLISHED. 127 (3.) Regarding the coastwise transportation of slaves, the House inclined more to freedom of traffic than the Senate. Upon this issue a few members from the South grew very angry; Early, Williams, of South Carolina, and Randolph among them. Seizing upon collateral points, as he so frequently did, for his most violent harangues, Randolph declared that if the bill passed without some proviso sanctioning a free coastwise transportation of all slaves accompanied by the owner or his agent, he should set the act at defiance. Notwithstanding his threat the House, by 63 to 49, accepted the report of a committee of conference, which omitted such a proviso.* The day after the act abolishing the slave-trade had passed the House, Randolph asked leave to bring in an explanatory bill; if refused, he said, the South would secede. This gasconade produced little effect; Smilie declaring that, for his part, he was not to be frightened by any such scarecrow. Leave was obtained, but Randolph's bill was consigned to the tomb of the Capulets.† Randolph was by no means the zealot for slavery he professed to be; but he spoke for effect, and that effect seems to have been to make himself a rallying-point for the discontented and divide his party. Far more obnoxious to the anti-slavery cause had been the persistent course of South Carolina, in continuing the slave traffic to the last moment, despite the wishes of Congress and the country and the quieting assurances of her representatives. Under instructions from their constituents the Northern Republicans in Congress had lately renewed the effort to impose the ten-dollar duty, but in this effort they were baffled§ until the time came for setting the broader seal of condemnation. Slave-trading was made a national crime as soon as our Constitution permitted it; but, meantime, the lawful tax upon this nefarious commerce was * Annals of Congress, December 15th, 1806-February 27th, 1807. The House, on the final passage of the slave-trade bill, which had been received from the Senate the last of January, voted in favor of it by 113 to 5, or nearly unanimously. † Randolph called up his explanatory bill again at the first session of the Tenth Congress, but nothing was done. Annals of Congress. + Supra, p. 56. See Annals of Congress, 1st Session. Ninth Congress. never laid; here, as in other instances, they who compromised a grand principle gaining a concession in return practically worthless, because confessedly inadequate. Here the conversion of the Union was reached through the conversion of the States; and to South Carolina belongs the unenviable distinction of the only State in whose ports African slaves were openly received until Congress caused the remonstrance of Christendom to be respected.* A speculation was on foot for propagating slavery in the Territories of Mississippi and Orleans.† Congress did much by shutting this outer door upon the slave-trade; but, unfortunately, inner doors were still left open. Upon the great national error of this era regarding domestic slavery we have already dwelt, namely, that the system already woven into the social fabric of the coast is permitted to become a pattern for the new interior States. Jefferson's accustomed prescience here failed him. Moved by the discontent which the French inhabitants of Orleans Territory manifested because of the present act, he thought it not unwise to let them receive slaves from the States; for, he argued, by thus dividing the evil we lessen its danger.§ The law of natural increase contradicts such a theory; and the danger, growing with this Union, consisted most of all in fostering the ambition of slaveholders to populate new States in their interest, and gain such an accession of wealth aud power as to rivet their institution securely upon the nation. Properly viewed, the abolition of the foreign slave-trade was to England the consummation of a humane national policy, * Private citizens of Rhode Island had employed their vessels, however, in the lucrative business of slavers, so as to invite the denunciation of the Abolition Convention which met at Philadelphia in 1806. See the memorial presented in the House, February 13th, 1806; Annals of Congress. During the last four years of licensed traffic, up to 1808, nearly 40,000 negroes arrived at the port of Charleston; two-thirds of that number in 1806 and 1807. The market there was glutted, and many hundreds of these miserable creatures were kept for months confined in ships or in wharf-houses, homesick and suffering under their imprisonment, while traders waited for a rise in market prices. Lambert's Travels. Supra, p. 55. See Jefferson's Works, January 13th, 1807. |