Strong and straightforward as this resolution was, time unfortunately proved that it meant very little.  Two years later, in this same Congress, a decided opposition was manifested to branding the slave-trade as inhuman, and it was thirteen years before South Carolina stopped the slave-trade or Massachusetts prohibited her citizens from engaging in it.  The passing of so strong a resolution must be explained by the motives before given, by the character of the drafting committee, by the desire of America in this crisis to appear well before the world, and by the natural moral enthusiasm aroused by the imminence of a great national struggle.

28. Reception of the Slave-Trade Resolution. The unanimity with which the colonists received this “Association” is not perhaps as remarkable as the almost entire absence of comment on the radical slave-trade clause.  A Connecticut town-meeting in December, 1774, noticed “with singular pleasure ... the second Article of the Association, in which it is agreed to import no more Negro Slaves."[16] This comment appears to have been almost the only one.  There were in various places some evidences of disapproval; but only in the State of Georgia was this widespread and determined, and based mainly on the slave-trade clause.[17] This opposition delayed the ratification meeting until January 18, 1775, and then delegates from but five of the twelve parishes appeared, and many of these had strong instructions against the approval of the plan.  Before this meeting could act, the governor adjourned it, on the ground that it did not represent the province.  Some of the delegates signed an agreement, one article of which promised to stop the importation of slaves March 15, 1775, i.e., four months later than the national “Association” had directed.  This was not, of course, binding on the province; and although a town like Darien might declare “our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of Slavery in America"[18] yet the powerful influence of Savannah was “not likely soon to give matters a favourable turn.  The importers were mostly against any interruption, and the consumers very much divided."[19] Thus the efforts of this Assembly failed, their resolutions being almost unknown, and, as a gentleman writes, “I hope for the honour of the Province ever will remain so."[20] The delegates to the Continental Congress selected by this rump assembly refused to take their seats.  Meantime South Carolina stopped trade with Georgia, because it “hath not acceded to the Continental Association,"[21] and the single Georgia parish of St. Johns appealed to the second Continental Congress to except it from the general boycott of the colony.  This county had already resolved not to “purchase any Slave imported at Savannah (large Numbers of which we understand are there expected) till the Sense of Congress shall be made known to us."[22]