ns ensued between several members, on the
participation of the traders of some of the New England States in
carrying on the slave trade." Finally, January 22, by a vote of 90 to
25, a tax bill was ordered to be brought in.[85] One was reported on the
27th.[86] Every sort of opposition was resorted to. On the one hand,
attempts were made to amend 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 C