lear that we have scant patience
with the paltering policy of Congress and the Executive that permitted
half a century of profitable law-breaking. But we must remember that
slaves were property, that dealing in them was immensely profitable, and
that while New England wanted this profit the South wanted the blacks.
Macaulay said that if any considerable financial interest could be served
by denying the attraction of gravitation, there would be a very vigorous
attack on that great physical truth. And so, as there were many financial
interests concerned in protecting slavery, every effort to effectually
abolish the trade was met by an outcry and by shrewd political opposition.
The slaves were better off in the United States than at home, Congress was
assured; they had the blessings of Christianity; were freed from the
endless wars and perils of the African jungle. Moreover, they were needed
to develop the South, while in the trade, the hardy and daring sailors
were trained, who in time would make the American navy the great power of
the deep. Political chicanery in Congress reinforced the clamor from
without, and though act after act for the destruction of the traffic was
passed, none proved to be enforcible--in each was what the politicians of
a later day called a "little joker," making it ineffective. But in 1820 a
law was passed declaring slave-trading piracy, and punishable with death.
So Congress had done its duty at last, but it was long years before the
Executive rightly enforced the law.

It is needless to go into the details of the long series of Acts of
Parliament and of Congress, treaties, conventions, and naval regulations,
which gradually made the outlawry of the slaver on the ocean complete. In
the humane work England took the lead, sacrificing the flourishing
Liverpool slave-trade with all its allied interests; sacrificing, too, the
immediate prosperity of its West Indian colonies, whose plantations were
tilled exclusively with slave labor, and even paying heavy cash indemnity
to Spain to secure her acquiescence. Unhappily, the United States was as
laggard as England was active. Indeed, a curious manifestation of national
pride made the American flag the slaver's badge of immunity, for the
Government stubbornly--and properly--refused to grant to British cruisers
the right to search vessels under our flag, and as there were few or no
American men-of-war cruising on the African coast, the slaver under the
Star