It would not be true to say that there was in the South in 1860 substantial unanimity on the subject of reopening the slave-trade; nevertheless, there certainly was a large and influential minority, including perhaps a majority of citizens of the Gulf States, who favored the project, and, in defiance of law and morals, aided and abetted its actual realization.  Various movements, it must be remembered, gained much of their strength from the fact that their success meant a partial nullification of the slave-trade laws.  The admission of Texas added probably seventy-five thousand recently imported slaves to the Southern stock; the movement against Cuba, which culminated in the “Ostend Manifesto” of Buchanan, Mason, and Soule, had its chief impetus in the thousands of slaves whom Americans had poured into the island.  Finally, the series of filibustering expeditions against Cuba, Mexico, and Central America were but the wilder and more irresponsible attempts to secure both slave territory and slaves.

87. Increase of the Slave-Trade from 1850 to 1860. The long and open agitation for the reopening of the slave-trade, together with the fact that the South had been more or less familiar with violations of the laws since 1808, led to such a remarkable increase of illicit traffic and actual importations in the decade 1850-1860, that the movement may almost be termed a reopening of the slave-trade.

In the foreign slave-trade our own officers continue to report “how shamefully our flag has been used;"[37] and British officers write “that at least one half of the successful part of the slave trade is carried on under the American flag,” and this because “the number of American cruisers on the station is so small, in proportion to the immense extent of the slave-dealing coast."[38] The fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in the United States, and centred at New York City.  “Few of our readers,” writes a periodical of the day, “are aware of the extent to which this infernal traffic is carried on, by vessels clearing from New York, and in close alliance with our legitimate trade; and that down-town merchants of wealth and respectability are extensively engaged in buying and selling African Negroes, and have been, with comparatively little interruption, for an indefinite number of years."[39] Another periodical says:  “The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed our powers of calculation.  The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distinction.  Slave dealers added largely to the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributed liberally to the treasuries of political organizations, and their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut."[40] During eighteen months of the years 1859-1860 eighty-five slavers