said as to slavery in the South Carolina cession (1787),[57] but it was tacitly understood that the provision of the Northwest Ordinance would not be applied.  In 1798 the bill introduced for the cession of Mississippi contained a specific declaration that the anti-slavery clause of 1787 should not be included.[58] The bill passed the Senate, but caused long and excited debate in the House.[59] It was argued, on the one hand, that the case in Mississippi was different from that in the Northwest Territory, because slavery was a legal institution in all the surrounding country, and to prohibit the institution was virtually to prohibit the settling of the country.  On the other hand, Gallatin declared that if this amendment should not obtain, “he knew not how slaves could be prevented from being introduced by way of New Orleans, by persons who are not citizens of the United States.”  It was moved to strike out the excepting clause; but the motion received only twelve votes,—­an apparent indication that Congress either did not appreciate the great precedent it was establishing, or was reprehensibly careless.  Harper of South Carolina then succeeded in building up the Charleston slave-trade interest by a section forbidding the slave traffic from “without the limits of the United States.”  Thatcher moved to strike out the last clause of this amendment, and thus to prohibit the interstate trade, but he failed to get a second.[60] Thus the act passed, punishing the introduction of slaves from without the country by a fine of $300 for each slave, and freeing the slave.[61]

In 1804 President Jefferson communicated papers to Congress on the status of slavery and the slave-trade in Louisiana.[62] The Spanish had allowed the traffic by edict in 1793, France had not stopped it, and Governor Claiborne had refrained from interference.  A bill erecting a territorial government was already pending.[63] The Northern “District of Louisiana” was placed under the jurisdiction of Indiana Territory, and was made subject to the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787.  Various attempts were made to amend the part of the bill referring to the Southern Territory:  first, so as completely to prohibit the slave-trade;[64] then to compel the emancipation at a certain age of all those imported;[65] next, to confine all importation to that from the States;[66] and, finally, to limit it further to slaves imported before South Carolina opened her ports.[67] The last two amendments prevailed, and the final act also extended to the Territory the Acts of 1794 and 1803.  Only slaves imported before May 1, 1798, could be introduced, and those must be slaves of actual settlers.[68] All slaves illegally imported were freed.

This stringent act was limited to one year.  The next year, in accordance with the urgent petition of the inhabitants, a bill was introduced against these restrictions.[69] By dexterous wording, this bill, which became a law March 2, 1805,[70] swept away all restrictions upon the slave-trade except that relating to foreign ports, and left even this provision so ambiguous that, later, by judicial interpretation of the law,[71] the foreign slave-trade was allowed, at least for a time.