head of the customs collection. Then, through the activity
of cruisers, the Secretary of the Navy gradually came to have oversight,
and eventually the whole matter was lodged with him, although the
Departments of State and War were more or less active on different
occasions. Later, at the advent of the Lincoln government, the
Department of the Interior was charged with the enforcement of the
slave-trade laws. It would indeed be surprising if, amid so much
uncertainty and shifting of responsibility, the law were not poorly
enforced. Poor enforcement, moreover, in the years 1808 to 1820 meant
far more than at almost any other period; for these years were, all
over the European world, a time of stirring economic change, and the set
which forces might then take would in a later period be unchangeable
without a cataclysm. Perhaps from 1808 to 1814, in the midst of
agitation and war, there was some excuse for carelessness. From 1814 on,
however, no such palliation existed, and the law was probably enforced
as the people who made it wished it enforced.

Most of the Southern States rather tardily passed the necessary
supplementary acts disposing of illegally imported Africans. A few
appear not to have passed any. Some of these laws, like the
Alabama-Mississippi Territory Act of 1815,[66] directed such Negroes to
be "sold by the proper officer of the court, to the highest bidder, at
public auction, for ready money." One-half the proceeds went to the
informer or to the collector of customs, the other half to the public
treasury. Other acts, like that of North Carolina in 1816,[67] directed
the Negroes to "be sold and disposed of for the use of the state."
One-fifth of the proceeds went to the informer. The Georgia Act of
1817[68] directed that the slaves be either sold or given to the
Colonization Society for transportation, providing the society reimburse
the State for all expense incurred, and pay for the transportation. In
this manner, machinery of somewhat clumsy build and varying pattern was
provided for the carrying out of the national act.

61. ~Evidence of the Continuance of the Trade.~ Undoubtedly, the Act of
1807 came very near being a dead letter. The testimony supporting this
view is voluminous. It consists of presidential messages, reports of
cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district
attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval
commanders, statements made on the flo