Background
The Article 1 Section 9 of the United States Constitution protected the slave trade for twenty years. Only starting January 1, 1808, could laws become effective to end the slave trade.
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
In part, to ensure passage of such a law when the time came, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was formed, and held its first meeting at the temporary Capital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1794. On March 22, 1794, Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which prohibited making, loading, outfitting, equipping, or dispatching of any ship to be used in the trade of slaves. Then on August 5, 1797, John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, was tried in federal court as the first American to be tried under the 1794 law. Brown was convicted and was forced to forfeit his ship Hope. On April 7, 1798, the fifth Congress passed an act that imposed a three hundred dollar per slave penalty on persons convicted of performing the illegal importation of slaves. It was an indication of the type of behavior and course of events soon to become commonplace in the Congress.
On Thursday, December 12, 1805, in the ninth Congress, Senator Stephen Row Bradley of Vermont gave notice that he would, bring in a bill to prohibit the importation of certain persons therein described "into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January", which will be "in the year of our Lord 1808", The "certain persons" were described as being slaves on Monday, December 16, 1805.
The House produced a bill that would explain the Senate Act. The two measures were bound together, with the House bill numbered H.R. 77 and the Senate Act being called An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1808. The bound measure also regulated the coastwise slave trade. President Thomas Jefferson signed the bill into law March 2, 1807.
The 1807 Act was modified and supplemented by the fifteenth Congress. The importation of slaves into the United States was called "piracy" by an Act of Congress that punctuated the Era of Good Feelings in 1819. Any citizen of the United States found guilty of such "piracy" might be given the death penalty. The role of the Navy was expanded to include patrols off the coasts of Cuba and South America. The effective date of the Act, January 1, 1808, was celebrated by Peter Williams, Jr., in "An Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade".
Read more about this topic: Act Prohibiting Importation Of Slaves
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