95. The Economic Movement. Economic measures against the trade were those which from the beginning had the best chance of success, but which were least tried.  They included tariff measures; efforts to encourage the immigration of free laborers and the emigration of the slaves; measures for changing the character of Southern industry; and, finally, plans to restore the economic balance which slavery destroyed, by raising the condition of the slave to that of complete freedom and responsibility.  Like the political efforts, these rested in part on a moral basis; and, as legal enactments, they were also themselves often political measures.  They differed, however, from purely moral and political efforts, in having as a main motive the economic gain which a substitution of free for slave labor promised.

The simplest form of such efforts was the revenue duty on slaves that existed in all the colonies.  This developed into the prohibitive tariff, and into measures encouraging immigration or industrial improvements.  The colonization movement was another form of these efforts; it was inadequately conceived, and not altogether sincere, but it had a sound, although in this case impracticable, economic basis.  The one great measure which finally stopped the slave-trade forever was, naturally, the abolition of slavery, i.e., the giving to the Negro the right to sell his labor at a price consistent with his own welfare.  The abolition of slavery itself, while due in part to direct moral appeal and political sagacity, was largely the result of the economic collapse of the large-farming slave system.

96. The Lesson for Americans. It may be doubted if ever before such political mistakes as the slavery compromises of the Constitutional Convention had such serious results, and yet, by a succession of unexpected accidents, still left a nation in position to work out its destiny.  No American can study the connection of slavery with United States history, and not devoutly pray that his country may never have a similar social problem to solve, until it shows more capacity for such work than it has shown in the past.  It is neither profitable nor in accordance with scientific truth to consider that whatever the constitutional fathers did was right, or that slavery was a plague sent from God and fated to be eliminated in due time.  We must face the fact that this problem arose principally from the cupidity and carelessness of our ancestors.  It was the plain duty of the colonies to crush the trade and the system in its infancy:  they preferred to enrich themselves on its profits.  It was the plain duty of a Revolution based upon “Liberty” to take steps toward the abolition of slavery:  it preferred promises to straightforward action.  It was the plain duty of the Constitutional Convention, in founding a new nation, to compromise with a threatening social evil only in case its settlement would thereby be postponed to a more favorable time:  this was