point
of view, evidences of moral awakening; they indicated slow, steady
development of the idea that to steal even Negroes was wrong. From
another point of view, these laws showed the fear of servile
insurrection and the desire to ward off danger from the State; again,
they often indicated a desire to appear well before the civilized world,
and to rid the "land of the free" of the paradox of slavery.
Representing such motives, the laws varied all the way from mere
regulating acts to absolute prohibitions. On the whole, these acts were
poorly conceived, loosely drawn, and wretchedly enforced. The systematic
violation of the provisions of many of them led to a widespread belief
that enforcement was, in the nature of the case, impossible; and thus,
instead of marking ground already won, they were too often sources of
distinct moral deterioration. Certainly the carnival of lawlessness that
succeeded the Act of 1807, and that which preceded final suppression in
1861, were glaring examples of the failure of the efforts to suppress
the slave-trade by mere law.

95. ~The Economic Movement.~ Economic measures against the trade were
those which from the beginning had the best chance of success, but which
were least tried. They included tariff measures; efforts to encourage
the immigration of free laborers and the emigration of the slaves;
measures for changing the character of Southern industry; and, finally,
plans to restore the economic balance which slavery destroyed, by
raising the condition of the slave to that of complete freedom and
responsibility. Like the political efforts, these rested in part on a
moral basis; and, as legal enactments, they were also themselves often
political measures. They differed, however, from purely moral and
political efforts, in having as a main motive the economic gain which a
substitution of free for slave labor promised.

The simplest form of such efforts was the revenue duty on slaves that
existed in all the colonies. This developed into the prohibitive tariff,
and into measures encouraging immigration or industrial improvements.
The colonization movement was another form of these efforts; it was
inadequately conceived, and not altogether sincere, but it had a sound,
although in this case impracticable, economic basis. The one great
measure which finally stopped the slave-trade forever was, naturally,
the abolition of slavery, i.e., the giving to the Negro the right to
sell his labor