, became the Act of March 2, 1807, prohibiting the
African slave-trade.[2]

Three main questions were to be settled by this bill: first, and most
prominent, that of the disposal of illegally imported Africans; second,
that of the punishment of those concerned in the importation; third,
that of the proper limitation of the interstate traffic by water.

The character of the debate on these three questions, as well as the
state of public opinion, is illustrated by the fact that forty of the
sixty pages of officially reported debates are devoted to the first
question, less than twenty to the second, and only two to the third. A
sad commentary on the previous enforcement of State and national laws is
the readiness with which it was admitted that wholesale violations of
the law would take place; indeed, Southern men declared that no strict
law against the slave-trade could be executed in the South, and that it
was only by playing on the motives of personal interest that the trade
could be checked. The question of punishment indicated the slowly
changing moral attitude of the South toward the slave system. Early
boldly said, "A large majority of people in the Southern States do not
consider slavery as even an evil."[3] The South, in fact, insisted on
regarding man-stealing as a minor offence, a "misdemeanor" rather than a
"crime." Finally, in the short and sharp debate on the interstate
coastwise trade, the growing economic side of the slavery question came
to the front, the vested interests' argument was squarely put, and the
future interstate trade almost consciously provided for.

From these considerations, it is doubtful as to how far it was expected
that the Act of 1807 would check the slave traffic; at any rate, so far
as the South was concerned, there seemed to be an evident desire to
limit the trade, but little thought that this statute would definitively
suppress it.

56. ~The First Question: How shall illegally imported Africans be
disposed of?~ The dozen or more propositions on the question of the
disposal of illegally imported Africans may be divided into two chief
heads, representing two radically opposed parties: 1. That illegally
imported Africans be free, although they might be indentured for a term
of years or removed from the country. 2. That such Africans be sold as
slaves.[4] The arguments on these two propositions, which were many and
far-reaching, may be roughly divided into three classes, political,