f 1833 in the organic law of the State they were astounded to be met
with the virtual repeal of that statute by the legislature. On the
other hand the constitutional convention not only rejected bodily all
the reform measures but added to the Bill of Rights this extraordinary
amendment: "The right of property is before and higher than any
constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such
slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of
the owner of any property whatsoever."

The slave trader once more had the courage to appear in the State.
Richard Henry Collins in an editorial in the _Maysville Eagle_,
November 6, 1849, gives us some vivid evidence of the effect which the
repeal of the law of 1833 had had in a few weeks' time. "A remarkably
forcible and practical argument in favor of incorporating the negro
law of 1833 into the new constitution reached this city in bodily
shape on Sunday, per the steamer _Herman_ from Charleston, Virginia.
Forty-four negroes--men, women and children--of whom seventeen men had
handcuffs on one hand and were chained together, two and two, passed
through this city for the interior of the State, under charge of two
regular traders. We opine that few who saw the spectacle would
hereafter say aught against the readoption of the anti-importation act
of 1833." Such scenes as this were the result of the passage of an
innocent-looking measure which allowed citizens to import slaves for
their own use, but which could really be made to include almost any
influx of slaves.

No further change in the importation laws was made until the crisis
immediately preceding the Civil War, when practically all opposition
was removed and the law of 1833 was abolished in its entirety.[317]
Explanations of the sudden turn of mind are not hard to find for the
enactment was passed amid the turmoil and chaos brought on by an
impending war and the radical slaveholders found it easy to get votes
for their side in a last vain endeavor to save the institution, not so
much from an economic standpoint as from a matter of principle. The
last chapter in the legal history of the importation problem in
Kentucky, however, had not yet been written. After three years of the
armed conflict between the North and the South, Kentucky, which had
remained loyal to the Union and fought against the slave power of the
South, reenacted on February 2, 1864, the old law of 1798 on the
prohibition of