As the proportion of the negroes to the free white population steadily rose, and as whole sections were overrun with slaves and slave traders, the Southern colonies grew alarmed.  In 1710, Virginia sought to curtail the importation by placing a duty of L5 on each slave.  This effort was futile, for the royal governor promptly vetoed it.  From time to time similar bills were passed, only to meet with royal disapproval.  South Carolina, in 1760, absolutely prohibited importation; but the measure was killed by the British crown.  As late as 1772, Virginia, not daunted by a century of rebuffs, sent to George III a petition in this vein:  “The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of Your Majesty’s American dominions....  Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech Your Majesty to remove all those restraints on Your Majesty’s governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce.”

All such protests were without avail.  The negro population grew by leaps and bounds, until on the eve of the Revolution it amounted to more than half a million.  In five states—­Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—­the slaves nearly equalled or actually exceeded the whites in number.  In South Carolina they formed almost two-thirds of the population.  Even in the Middle colonies of Delaware and Pennsylvania about one-fifth of the inhabitants were from Africa.  To the North, the proportion of slaves steadily diminished although chattel servitude was on the same legal footing as in the South.  In New York approximately one in six and in New England one in fifty were negroes, including a few freedmen.

The climate, the soil, the commerce, and the industry of the North were all unfavorable to the growth of a servile population.  Still, slavery, though sectional, was a part of the national system of economy.  Northern ships carried slaves to the Southern colonies and the produce of the plantations to Europe.  “If the Northern states will consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase in slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers,” said John Rutledge, of South Carolina, in the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States.  “What enriches a part enriches the whole and the states are the best judges of their particular interest,” responded Oliver Ellsworth, the distinguished spokesman of Connecticut.

=References=

E. Charming, History of the United States, Vols.  I and II.

J.A.  Doyle, The English Colonies in America (5 vols.).

J. Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (2 vols.).

A.B.  Faust, The German Element in the United States (2 vols.).