by legal enactment; efforts which sought to
neutralize the economic advantages of the slave-trade. There is always a
certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil
simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized
in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral
weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called
for. This was the case in the early history of the colonies; and
experience proved that an appeal to moral rectitude was unheard in
Carolina when rice had become a great crop, and in Massachusetts when
the rum-slave-traffic was paying a profit of 100%. That the various
abolition societies and anti-slavery movements did heroic work in
rousing the national conscience is certainly true; unfortunately,
however, these movements were weakest at the most critical times. When,
in 1774 and 1804, the material advantages of the slave-trade and the
institution of slavery were least, it seemed possible that moral suasion
might accomplish the abolition of both. A fatal spirit of temporizing,
however, seized the nation at these points; and although the slave-trade
was, largely for political reasons, forbidden, slavery was left
untouched. Beyond this point, as years rolled by, it was found well-nigh
impossible to rouse the moral sense of the nation. Even in the matter of
enforcing its own laws and co-operating with the civilized world, a
lethargy seized the country, and it did not awake until slavery was
about to destroy it. Even then, after a long and earnest crusade, the
national sense of right did not rise to the entire abolition of
slavery. It was only a peculiar and almost fortuitous commingling of
moral, political, and economic motives that eventually crushed African
slavery and its handmaid, the slave-trade in America.

94. ~The Political Movement.~ The political efforts to limit the
slave-trade were the outcome partly of moral reprobation of the trade,
partly of motives of expediency. This legislation was never such as wise
and powerful rulers may make for a nation, with the ulterior purpose of
calling in the respect which the nation has for law to aid in raising
its standard of right. The colonial and national laws on the slave-trade
merely registered, from time to time, the average public opinion
concerning this traffic, and are therefore to be regarded as negative
signs rather than as positive efforts. These signs were, from one