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.

44. First Debate in Congress, 1789. The attention of the national government was early directed to slavery and the trade by the rise, in the first Congress, of the question of taxing slaves imported.  During the debate on the duty bill introduced by Clymer’s committee, Parker of Virginia moved, May 13, 1789, to lay a tax of ten dollars per capita on slaves imported.  He plainly stated that the tax was designed to check the trade, and that he was “sorry that the Constitution prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation altogether.”  The proposal was evidently unwelcome, and caused an extended debate.[19] Smith of South Carolina wanted to postpone a matter so “big with the most serious consequences to the State he represented.”  Roger Sherman of Connecticut “could not reconcile himself to the insertion of human beings as an article of duty, among goods, wares, and merchandise.”  Jackson of Georgia argued against any restriction, and thought such States as Virginia “ought to let their neighbors get supplied, before they imposed such a burden upon the importation.”  Tucker of South Carolina declared it “unfair to bring in such an important subject at a time when debate was almost precluded,” and denied the right of Congress to “consider whether the importation of slaves is proper or not.”

Mr. Parker was evidently somewhat abashed by this onslaught of friend and foe, but he “had ventured to introduce the subject after full deliberation, and did not like to withdraw it.”  He desired Congress, “if possible,” to “wipe off the stigma under which America labored.”  This brought Jackson of Georgia again to his feet.  He believed, in spite of the “fashion of the day,” that the Negroes were better off as slaves than as freedmen, and that, as the tax was partial, “it would be the most odious tax Congress could impose.”  Such sentiments were a distinct advance in pro-slavery doctrine, and called for a protest from Madison of Virginia.  He thought the discussion proper, denied the partiality of the tax, and declared that, according to the spirit of the Constitution and his own desire, it was to be hoped “that, by expressing a national disapprobation of this trade, we may destroy it, and save ourselves from reproaches, and our posterity the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with slaves.”  Finally, to Burke of South Carolina, who thought “the gentlemen were contending for nothing,” Madison sharply rejoined, “If we contend for nothing, the gentlemen who are opposed to us do not contend for a great deal.”