THE CAPITOL
BURNED BY THE BRITISH ARMY. From Torrey's "American Slave Trader."
Justice looks from the sky in retribution upon a nation which permits
the slave trade to be carried on almost within the shadow of the
Capitol.]
Those who believed that compromises were curatives rather than means
of temporary relief as we now see them, must have found hope for the
future in the number of compromises in the convention caused by slavery.
As the years sped by under the Constitution, and the menace failed to
renew its formidable shape, these hopes must have brightened into a
belief that the spectre was laid for ever. The expiration of the twenty
years demanded by South Carolina and Georgia in which to get their
supply of slave labour from Africa drew nigh, and brought forth a
prohibitory law to take effect the first day of the year 1808. The
newer Gulf States in vain demanded an extension of the open door to
place them upon an equal footing with the older States. Yet the law
was never enforced, and it was always possible to get a fresh supply
of slaves even to the time of the Civil War. The blame must be shared
equally by the planters of the Gulf States, who purchased the new
slaves, and by the ship-owners of the free States, whose vessels brought
them from Africa for the profit of the trade.
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