it so as to prohibit importation after 1807, and to prevent importation into the Territories; on the other hand, attempts were made to recommit and postpone the measure.  It finally got a third reading, but was recommitted to a select committee, and disappeared until February 14.[87] Being then amended so as to provide for the forfeiture of smuggled cargoes, but saying nothing as to the disposition of the slaves, it was again relegated to a committee, after a vote of 69 to 42 against postponement.[88] On March 4 it appeared again, and a motion to reject it was lost.  Finally, in the midst of the war scare and the question of non-importation of British goods, the bill was apparently forgotten, and the last attempt to tax imported slaves ended, like the others, in failure.

54. Key-Note of the Period. One of the last acts of this period strikes again the key-note which sounded throughout the whole of it.  On February 20, 1806, after considerable opposition, a bill to prohibit trade with San Domingo passed the Senate.[89] In the House it was charged by one side that the measure was dictated by France, and by the other, that it originated in the fear of countenancing Negro insurrection.  The bill, however, became a law, and by continuations remained on the statute-books until 1809.  Even at that distance the nightmare of the Haytian insurrection continued to haunt the South, and a proposal to reopen trade with the island caused wild John Randolph to point out the “dreadful evil” of a “direct trade betwixt the town of Charleston and the ports of the island of St. Domingo."[90]

Of the twenty years from 1787 to 1807 it can only be said that they were, on the whole, a period of disappointment so far as the suppression of the slave-trade was concerned.  Fear, interest, and philanthropy united for a time in an effort which bade fair to suppress the trade; then the real weakness of the constitutional compromise appeared, and the interests of the few overcame the fears and the humanity of the many.

FOOTNOTES: 

  [1] Prince, Digest of the Laws of Georgia, p. 786; Marbury
      and Crawford, Digest of the Laws of Georgia, pp. 440, 442. 
      The exact text of this act appears not to be extant.  Section
      I. is stated to have been “re-enacted by the constitution.” 
      Possibly this act prohibited slaves also, although this is not
      certain.  Georgia passed several regulative acts between 1755
      and 1793.  Cf.  Renne, Colonial Acts of Georgia, pp. 73-4,
      164, note.

  [2] Marbury and Crawford, Digest, p. 30, Sec. 11.  The clause
      was penned by Peter J. Carnes of Jefferson.  Cf.  W.B.  Stevens,
      History of Georgia (1847), II. 501.

  [3] Grimke, Public Laws, p. 466.

  [4] Cooper and McCord, Statutes, VII. 431.