The Constitution's Ban On Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Historical Perspective

The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, enacted on March 2, 1807, is a federal law in the United States that prohibited the importation of slaves into the country. The legislation was promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, who called for its enactment in his 1806 State of the Union Address. The act took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution, imposing heavy penalties on international slave traders. While the act did not end slavery or the domestic sale of slaves, it reflected the growing trend toward abolishing the international slave trade.

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The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves

The Act was promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, who had advocated for it since the 1770s, including in his 1806 State of the Union Address. The legislation reflected a growing trend towards abolishing the international slave trade, which had gained momentum since the Revolutionary War when several states had pledged to end their involvement.

The passage of the Act was a result of a long and contentious debate surrounding slavery at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Delegates from Northern states were against the continued importation of slaves, while those from Southern states lobbied for its protection. A compromise was reached, as reflected in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution, which set 1808 as the earliest date for Congress to outlaw the importation of slaves.

While the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was a crucial milestone, it did not end slavery in the United States. The domestic sale of slaves continued, and illegal smuggling of slaves into the country persisted, albeit at a reduced rate, until the Civil War broke out in 1861.

The Slave Trade Act of 1794

The passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1794 was a significant shift in the United States' approach to the transatlantic slave trade. During the Revolutionary War, all of the Thirteen Colonies had pledged to ban their involvement in the international slave trade for a variety of economic, political, and moral reasons. However, after the war, some states reopened their involvement in the slave trade, including South Carolina and Georgia. The Slave Trade Act of 1794 was a response to these developments and was an important step towards eventually abolishing the slave trade in the United States.

It is important to note that the Slave Trade Act of 1794 did not prohibit the importation of slaves into the United States, which would not be federally mandated until the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807. Additionally, the 1794 Act did not end slavery itself within the United States, which would only be abolished after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Nonetheless, the Slave Trade Act of 1794 was a crucial step in the long journey towards ending slavery and its legacy in the United States.

Fugitive slave clause

The Fugitive Slave Clause, also known as the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labour Clause, is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. The clause was adopted at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and it requires that a "Person held to Service or Labour" (usually a slave, apprentice, or indentured servant) who flees to another state must be returned to their master in the state from which they escaped. The exact wording of the clause is as follows:

> No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

It is notable that the words "slave" and "slavery" are not used in this clause, as with other references to slavery in the Constitution. However, the intent to address slavery in the Constitution is clear. Historian Donald Fehrenbacher believes that the Constitution sought to establish that slavery existed only under state law, not federal law. This is supported by a last-minute change to the Fugitive Slave Clause, where the phrase “legally held to service or labour in one state” was changed to “held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof”. This revision removed any implication that the Constitution legally sanctioned slavery.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was unanimously approved by the Convention, despite objections from James Wilson and Roger Sherman that it would oblige state executives to seize fugitive slaves at public expense. The Articles of Confederation lacked an analogous provision, but the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which abolished slavery in the Territory, provided for the return of fugitive slaves who escaped there. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 further strengthened the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Clause, and this was reinforced by the Compromise of 1850. Under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the clause, a slave owner had the same right to seize and repossess their fugitive slave in another state as granted to them by the local laws of their own state.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was largely nullified by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery except as a punishment for criminal acts. An attempt to repeal the clause in 1864, during the Civil War, failed. However, it has been noted that the clause may still have some relevance, as per the United States v. Kozminski case, where the U.S. Supreme Court stated that people can still be held to service or labour under limited circumstances.

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The Three-Fifths Compromise

The delegates from the Northern states wanted to make representation dependent on the size of a state's free population. On the other hand, the Southern delegates threatened to abandon the convention if enslaved individuals were not counted. The Southern states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. The free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, as those slaves had no voting rights.

Eventually, the framers agreed on a compromise that called for representation in the House of Representatives to be apportioned on the basis of a state's free population plus three-fifths of its enslaved population. This agreement came to be known as the Three-Fifths Compromise. This compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states.

The Compromise of 1850

The transatlantic slave trade was a controversial issue at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The delegates agreed that the United States would potentially cease the importation of slaves in 1808. This agreement, known as the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, was a compromise to prevent Congress from outlawing the importation of slaves for 20 years.

In the lead-up to 1808, several acts were passed to restrict the slave trade. In 1794, Congress passed the Slave Trade Act, which ended the legality of American ships participating in the trade. In 1800, an act of Congress made it illegal for Americans to engage in the slave trade between nations and authorized the seizure of slave ships and their cargo.

On March 2, 1807, Congress passed "An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States," which took effect on January 1, 1808. This act, promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, prohibited the importation of slaves into the United States and regulated the coastwise slave trade. However, it did not end slavery or the domestic sale of slaves, and the illegal importation of slaves continued.

Now, onto the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850. Designed by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, it aimed to temporarily defuse tensions between slave and free states in the years leading up to the American Civil War. The compromise centered on addressing issues related to slavery in the territories acquired from the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

The five bills that comprised the Compromise of 1850 were as follows:

• The first bill created a new, stricter Fugitive Slave Law, requiring federal officials in all states, including those where slavery was prohibited, to help return escaped slaves to their owners.
• The second bill ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C., although slavery remained legal in the district.
• The third bill admitted California to the Union as a free state.
• The fourth bill established the New Mexico and Utah territories, giving them popular sovereignty to decide on the issue of slavery.
• The fifth bill defined the boundaries between Texas and the United States, and the federal government assumed Texas's public debt.

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