nly the vote of his State was
recorded against it.[36]

On Tuesday, October 3, 1783, a deputation from the Yearly Meeting of the
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware Friends asked leave to present a
petition. Leave was granted the following day,[37] but no further minute
appears. According to the report of the Friends, the petition was
against the slave-trade; and "though the Christian rectitude of the
concern was by the Delegates generally acknowledged, yet not being
vested with the powers of legislation, they declined promoting any
public remedy against the gross national iniquity of trafficking in the
persons of fellow-men."[38]

The only legislative activity in regard to the trade during the
Confederation was taken by the individual States.[39] Before 1778
Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia had by law
stopped the further importation of slaves, and importation had
practically ceased in all the New England and Middle States, including
Maryland. In consequence of the revival of the slave-trade after the
War, there was then a lull in State activity until 1786, when North
Carolina laid a prohibitive duty, and South Carolina, a year later,
began her series of temporary prohibitions. In 1787-1788 the New England
States forbade the participation of their citizens in the traffic. It
was this wave of legislation against the traffic which did so much to
blind the nation as to the strong hold which slavery still had on the
country.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These figures are from the _Report of the Lords of the
Committee of Council_, etc. (London, 1789).

[2] Sheffield, _Observations on American Commerce_, p. 28;
P.L. Ford, _The Association of the First Congress_, in
_Political Science Quarterly_, VI. 615-7.

[3] Cf., e.g., Arthur Lee's letter to R.H. Lee, March 18,
1774, in which non-intercourse is declared "the only advisable
and sure mode of defence": Force, _American Archives_, 4th
Ser., I. 229. Cf. also _Ibid._, p. 240; Ford, in _Political
Science Quarterly_, VI. 614-5.

[4] Goodloe, _Birth of the Republic_, p. 260.

[5] Staples, _Annals of Providence_ (1843), p. 235.

[6] Force, _American Archives_, 4th Ser., I. 735. This was
probably copied from the Virginia resolve.

[7] Force, _American Archives_, 4th Ser., I. 600.

[8] _Ibid._, I. 494, 530. Cf. pp. 523, 616, 641, etc.

[9] _Ibid._, I. 687.

[10] _Ibid._, I. 511, 526