Excerpt from "Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves"

Passed on March 2, 1807
Published in Documents of American History, edited by
Henry S. Commager, 1943

After the American Revolution ended in 1783, the matter of slavery grew more and more controversial among the states. The slave population was growing rapidly, because slave families were having children and plantation owners were importing even more slaves from Africa. The largest concentration of slaves was in the South, where large farms of tobacco, rice, and cotton required many laborers. The Northern states did not need large numbers of slaves, and some of them began to pass legislation to end slavery. In 1777, Vermont had become the first state to prohibit slavery. By 1783, other Northern states had chosen to end slavery and were gradually phasing it out.

Slavery...