be
disposed of?
57. The Second Question: How shall Violations be punished?
58. The Third Question: How shall the Interstate Coastwise Slave-Trade
be protected?
59. Legislative History of the Bill.
60. Enforcement of the Act.
61. Evidence of the Continuance of the Trade.
62. Apathy of the Federal Government.
63. Typical Cases.
64. The Supplementary Acts, 1818-1820.
65. Enforcement of the Supplementary Acts, 1818-1825.

55. ~The Act of 1807.~ The first great goal of anti-slavery effort in
the United States had been, since the Revolution, the suppression of the
slave-trade by national law. It would hardly be too much to say that the
Haytian revolution, in addition to its influence in the years from 1791
to 1806, was one of the main causes that rendered the accomplishment of
this aim possible at the earliest constitutional moment. To the great
influence of the fears of the South was added the failure of the French
designs on Louisiana, of which Toussaint L'Ouverture was the most
probable cause. The cession of Louisiana in 1803 challenged and aroused
the North on the slavery question again; put the Carolina and Georgia
slave-traders in the saddle, to the dismay of the Border States; and
brought the whole slave-trade question vividly before the public
conscience. Another scarcely less potent influence was, naturally, the
great anti-slavery movement in England, which after a mighty struggle of
eighteen years was about to gain its first victory in the British Act of
1807.

President Jefferson, in his pacificatory message of December 2, 1806,
said: "I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the
period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to
withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further
participation in those violations of human rights which have been so
long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the
morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have
long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take
prohibitory effect till the first day of the year one thousand eight
hundred and eight, yet the intervening period is not too long to
prevent, by timely notice, expeditions which cannot be completed before
that day."[1]

In pursuance of this recommendation, the very next day Senator Bradley
of Vermont introduced into the Senate a bill which, after a complicated
legislative history