Pollard, in his _Black Diamonds_, urged the
importation of Africans as "laborers." "This I grant you," said he,
"would be practically the re-opening of the African slave trade; but ...
you will find that it very often becomes necessary to evade the letter
of the law, in some of the greatest measures of social happiness and
patriotism."[30]

86. ~Southern Policy in 1860.~ The matter did not rest with mere words.
During the session of the Vicksburg Convention, an "African Labor Supply
Association" was formed, under the presidency of J.D.B. De Bow, editor
of _De Bow's Review_, and ex-superintendent of the seventh census. The
object of the association was "to promote the supply of African
labor."[31] In 1857 the committee of the South Carolina legislature to
whom the Governor's slave-trade message was referred made an elaborate
report, which declared in italics: _"The South at large does need a
re-opening of the African slave trade."_ Pettigrew, the only member who
disagreed to this report, failed of re-election. The report contained an
extensive argument to prove the kingship of cotton, the perfidy of
English philanthropy, and the lack of slaves in the South, which, it was
said, would show a deficit of six hundred thousand slaves by 1878.[32]
In Georgia, about this time, an attempt to expunge the slave-trade
prohibition in the State Constitution lacked but one vote of
passing.[33] From these slower and more legal movements came others
less justifiable. The long argument on the "apprentice" system finally
brought a request to the collector of the port at Charleston, South
Carolina, from E. Lafitte & Co., for a clearance to Africa for the
purpose of importing African "emigrants." The collector appealed to the
Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb of Georgia, who flatly refused to
take the bait, and replied that if the "emigrants" were brought in as
slaves, it would be contrary to United States law; if as freemen, it
would be contrary to their own State law.[34] In Louisiana a still more
radical movement was attempted, and a bill passed the House of
Representatives authorizing a company to import two thousand five
hundred Africans, "indentured" for fifteen years "at least." The bill
lacked but two votes of passing the Senate.[35] It was said that the
_Georgian_, of Savannah, contained a notice of an agricultural society
which "unanimously resolved to offer a premium of $25 for the best
specimen of a live African imported