destined soon to pass away. In their time, (1787) slaves were
comparatively of little value--there being then no great slave-labor
staple (as cotton is now) to make them profitable to their holders.[A]
Had the circumstances of the country remained as they then were,
slave-labor, always and every where the most expensive--would have
disappeared before the competition of free labour. They had seen, too,
the principle of universal liberty, on which the Revolution was
justified, recognised and embodied in most of the State Constitutions;
they had seen slavery utterly forbidden in that of Vermont
--instantaneously abolished in that of Massachusetts--and laws
enacted in the New-England States and in Pennsylvania, for its gradual
abolition. Well might they have anticipated, that Justice and Humanity,
now starting forth with fresh vigor, would, in their march, sweep away
the whole system; more especially, as freedom of speech and of the
press--the legitimate abolisher not only of the acknowledged vice of
slavery, but of every other that time should reveal in our institutions
or practices--had been fully secured to the people. Again; power was
conferred on Congress to put a stop to the African slave-trade, without
which it was thought, at that time, to be impossible to maintain
slavery, as a system, on this continent,--so great was the havoc it
committed on human life. Authority was also granted to Congress to
prevent the transfer of slaves, as articles of commerce, from one State
to another; and the introduction of slavery into the territories. All
this was crowned by the power of refusing admission into the Union, to
any new state, whose form of government was repugnant to the principles
of liberty set forth in that of the United States. The faithful
execution, by Congress, of these powers, it was reasonably enough
supposed, would, at least, prevent the growth of slavery, if it did not
entirely remove it. Congress did, at the set time, execute _one_ of
them--deemed, then, the most effectual of the whole; but, as it has
turned out, the least so.

[Footnote A: The cultivation of cotton was almost unknown in the United
States before 1787. It was not till two years afterward that it began to
be raised or exported. (See Report of the Secretary of the Treasury,
Feb. 29, 1836.)--See Appendix, D.]

The effect of the interdiction of the African slave-trade was, not to
diminish the trade itself, or greatly to mitigate its horrors; it