, declining somewhat between 1825 and 1830, and then reviving,
until it reached its highest activity between 1840 and 1860. The
development of a vast internal slave-trade, and the consequent rise in
the South of vested interests strongly opposed to slave smuggling, led
to a falling off in the illicit introduction of Negroes after 1825,
until the fifties; nevertheless, smuggling never entirely ceased, and
large numbers were thus added to the plantations of the Gulf States.

Monroe had various constitutional scruples as to the execution of the
Act of 1819;[124] but, as Congress took no action, he at last put a fair
interpretation on his powers, and appointed Samuel Bacon as an agent in
Africa to form a settlement for recaptured Africans. Gradually the
agency thus formed became merged with that of the Colonization Society
on Cape Mesurado; and from this union Liberia was finally evolved.[125]

Meantime, during the years 1818 to 1820, the activity of the
slave-traders was prodigious. General James Tallmadge declared in the
House, February 15, 1819: "Our laws are already highly penal against
their introduction, and yet, it is a well known fact, that about
fourteen thousand slaves have been brought into our country this last
year."[126] In the same year Middleton of South Carolina and Wright of
Virginia estimated illicit introduction at 13,000 and 15,000
respectively.[127] Judge Story, in charging a jury, took occasion to
say: "We have but too many proofs from unquestionable sources, that it
[the slave-trade] is still carried on with all the implacable rapacity
of former times. Avarice has grown more subtle in its evasions, and
watches and seizes its prey with an appetite quickened rather than
suppressed by its guilty vigils. American citizens are steeped to their
very mouths (I can hardly use too bold a figure) in this stream of
iniquity."[128] The following year, 1820, brought some significant
statements from various members of Congress. Said Smith of South
Carolina: "Pharaoh was, for his temerity, drowned in the Red Sea, in
pursuing them [the Israelites] contrary to God's express will; but our
Northern friends have not been afraid even of that, in their zeal to
furnish the Southern States with Africans. They are better seamen than
Pharaoh, and calculate by that means to elude the vigilance of Heaven;
which they seem to disregard, if they can but elude the violated laws of
their country."[129] As late as May he saw little h