porary discussions of the question of
importation that it was the firm conviction that in order to do
justice to the slave and the institution as a whole within the State
it was necessary to prevent the infusion of any foreign slave element.
Once such a policy had been carried out to a successful conclusion,
they would have been confronted only with a purely domestic type of
slavery and its increase. With such an ideal condition, for those
times, the institution eventually would have been easily handled. But
these early lawmakers, while no doubt honest in their intentions, did
not have the wisdom that was tempered with experience, and the
unscrupulous slave traders found further defects in the law and took
advantage of them. A careful examination of the law of 1794, the
codification of 1798, and the amendments of 1814 and 1815 will show
that the whole theory of non-importation is summed up in the word
_intent_. It was the intent with which the slaves were introduced, and
to this alone the penalty attached. They were not to be imported as
merchandise but every citizen could import slaves for his own use.
Once these slaves were within the State there was no penalty provided
if they were sold. There was nothing to prevent a man from selling
what slaves he had imported and later going without the confines of
the State and bringing in more. If he were brought before the court,
he would claim that he had not intended to sell them when they were
brought in, and no one could place a penalty on his intentions. It
seems that there were other violators of the spirit of the law, who
never sold any of the slaves but brought them into the State in large
numbers and then hired them out for such long terms as 99 years.[312]
The fundamental idea of the law had been to place a curb on the
increase of the slave population by importation and these acts were in
direct opposition to the intention of the enactments.

An index of the inefficiency of the existing provisions regarding
importation can be found in the figures on the growth of the slave
population during this period when it is borne in mind that legally
slaves could not be imported, except for personal use, after the year
1794. The slave population in 1790 had been 11,830 and by 1800 had
increased to 40,343 or at the rate of 241.02 per cent; in 1810 there
were 80,561 slaves or an increase of 99.69 per cent; in 1820 there
were 126,732, a gain of 57.31 per cent; and by 1830 they had