Slave-Trade Policy in the United States

Acceptance of the Policy (the Federal Convention, 1789)

In the book “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1), W. E. B. Du Bois explained the following: As in the Federal Convention, so in the State conventions, it is noticeable that the compromise was accepted by the various States from widely different motives.41 Nevertheless, these motives were not fixed and unchangeable, and there was still discernible a certain underlying 73agreement in the dislike of slavery. One cannot help thinking that if the devastation of the late war had not left an extraordinary demand for slaves in the South,—if, for instance, there had been in 1787 the same plethora in the slave-market as in 1774,—the future history of the country would have been far different. As it was, the twenty-one years of laissez-faire were confirmed by the States, and the nation entered upon the constitutional period with the slave-trade legal in three States,42 and with a feeling of quiescence toward it in the rest of the Union.

Resources

Notes and References

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870” (1893), Longmans, Green and Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcuta.

See Also

Further Reading

• Samuel Greene Arnold. History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 2 vols. New York, 1859–60. (See Index to Vol. II., “Slave Trade.”)
• John Codman Hurd . The Jamaica Movement, for promoting the Enforcement of the Slave-Trade Treaties, and the Suppression of the Slave-Trade; with statements of Fact, Convention, and Law: prepared at the request of the Kingston Committee. London, 1850.
• Edward E. Dunbar. The Mexican Papers, containing the History of the Rise and Decline of Commercial Slavery in America, with reference to the Future of Mexico. First Series, No. 5. New York, 1861.
• John Ranby. Observations on the Evidence given before the Committees of the Privy Council and House of Commons in Support of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade. London, 1791.
• Thomas Clarkson. An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African. London and Dublin, 1786.
• George C. Mason. The African Slave Trade in Colonial Times. (In American Historical Record, I. 311, 338.)
• Friends. A View of the Present State of the African Slave Trade. Philadelphia, 1824.
• Jesse Torrey. A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery … and a Project of Colonial Asylum for Free Persons of Colour. Philadelphia, 1817.