ike out the excepting clause; but the motion received only twelve
votes,--an apparent indication that Congress either did not appreciate
the great precedent it was establishing, or was reprehensibly careless.
Harper of South Carolina then succeeded in building up the Charleston
slave-trade interest by a section forbidding the slave traffic from
"without the limits of the United States." Thatcher moved to strike out
the last clause of this amendment, and thus to prohibit the interstate
trade, but he failed to get a second.[60] Thus the act passed, punishing
the introduction of slaves from without the country by a fine of $300
for each slave, and freeing the slave.[61]

In 1804 President Jefferson communicated papers to Congress on the
status of slavery and the slave-trade in Louisiana.[62] The Spanish had
allowed the traffic by edict in 1793, France had not stopped it, and
Governor Claiborne had refrained from interference. A bill erecting a
territorial government was already pending.[63] The Northern "District
of Louisiana" was placed under the jurisdiction of Indiana Territory,
and was made subject to the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787. Various
attempts were made to amend the part of the bill referring to the
Southern Territory: first, so as completely to prohibit the
slave-trade;[64] then to compel the emancipation at a certain age of all
those imported;[65] next, to confine all importation to that from the
States;[66] and, finally, to limit it further to slaves imported before
South Carolina opened her ports.[67] The last two amendments prevailed,
and the final act also extended to the Territory the Acts of 1794 and
1803. Only slaves imported before May 1, 1798, could be introduced, and
those must be slaves of actual settlers.[68] All slaves illegally
imported were freed.

This stringent act was limited to one year. The next year, in accordance
with the urgent petition of the inhabitants, a bill was introduced
against these restrictions.[69] By dexterous wording, this bill, which
became a law March 2, 1805,[70] swept away all restrictions upon the
slave-trade except that relating to foreign ports, and left even this
provision so ambiguous that, later, by judicial interpretation of the
law,[71] the foreign slave-trade was allowed, at least for a time.

Such a stream of slaves now poured into the new Territory that the
following year a committee on the matter was appointed by the House.[72]
The committee reporte