Legislation of the Eastern States in the United States
Legislation of the Eastern States (Toussaint l’Ouverture and Anti-Slavery Effort, 1787–1808)
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: In the Eastern States, where slavery as an institution was already nearly defunct, action was aimed toward stopping the notorious participation of citizens in the slave-trade outside the State. The prime movers were the Rhode Island Quakers. Having early 77secured a law against the traffic in their own State, they turned their attention to others. Through their remonstrances Connecticut, in 1788,15 prohibited participation in the trade by a fine of £500 on the vessel, £50 on each slave, and loss of insurance; this act was strengthened in 1792,16 the year after the Haytian revolt. Massachusetts, after many fruitless attempts, finally took advantage of an unusually bold case of kidnapping, and passed a similar act in 1788.17 “This,” says Belknap, “was the utmost which could be done by our legislatures; we still have to regret the impossibility of making a law here, which shall restrain our citizens from carrying on this trade in foreign bottoms, and from committing the crimes which this act prohibits, in foreign countries, as it is said some of them have done since the enacting of these laws.”18
Thus it is seen how, spurred by the tragedy in the West Indies, the United States succeeded by State action in prohibiting the slave-trade from 1798 to 1803, in furthering the cause of abolition, and in preventing the fitting out of slave-trade expeditions in United States ports. The country had good cause to congratulate itself. The national government hastened to supplement State action as far as possible, and the prophecies of the more sanguine Revolutionary fathers seemed about to be realized, when the ill-considered act of South Carolina showed the weakness of the constitutional compromise.