that a captured slaver must always be returned to
the port whence she sailed.[119] This, of course, secured decided
advantages to Southern slave-traders. The most radical provision of the
act was that which directed the President to "make such regulations and
arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and
removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes,
mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought
within their jurisdiction;" and to appoint an agent in Africa to receive
such Negroes.[120] Finally, an appropriation of $100,000 was made to
enforce the act.[121] This act was in some measure due to the new
colonization movement; and the return of Africans recaptured was a
distinct recognition of its efforts, and the real foundation of Liberia.

To render this straightforward act effective, it was necessary to add
but one measure, and that was a penalty commensurate with the crime of
slave stealing. This was accomplished by the Act of May 15, 1820,[122] a
law which may be regarded as the last of the Missouri Compromise
measures. The act originated from the various bills on piracy which were
introduced early in the sixteenth Congress. The House bill, in spite of
opposition, was amended so as to include slave-trading under piracy,
and passed. The Senate agreed without a division. This law provided that
direct participation in the slave-trade should be piracy, punishable
with death.[123]

----------------------+----------------------+-----------------------
STATUTES AT LARGE. | DATE. | AMOUNT APPROPRIATED.
----------------------+----------------------+-----------------------
VOL. PAGE | |
III. 533-4 | March 3, 1819 | $100,000
" 764 | " 3, 1823 | 50,000
IV. 141 | " 14, 1826 | 32,000
" 208 | March 2, 1827 | / 36,710
| | \ 20,000
" 302 | May 24, 1828 | 30,000
" 354 | March 2, 1829 | 16,000
" 462 | " 2, 1831 | 16,000
" 615 | Feb. 20, 1833 | 5,000
" 671 | Jan. 24, 1834 | 5,000
V. 157-8 | March 3, 1837 |