The slaves were still left to the disposal
of the States.
This statute was, of course, a failure from the start,[114] and at the
very next session Congress took steps to revise it. A bill was reported
in the House, January 13, 1819, but it was not discussed till
March.[115] It finally passed, after "much debate."[116] The Senate
dropped its own bill, and, after striking out the provision for the
death penalty, passed the bill as it came from the House.[117] The House
acquiesced, and the bill became a law, March 3, 1819,[118] in the midst
of the Missouri trouble. This act directed the President to use armed
cruisers on the coasts of the United States and Africa to suppress the
slave-trade; one-half the proceeds of the condemned ship were to go to
the captors as bounty, provided the Africans were safely lodged with a
United States marshal and the crew with the civil authorities. These
provisions were seriously marred by a proviso which Butler of Louisiana,
had inserted, with a "due regard for the interests of the State which he
represented," viz., that a captured slaver must always be returned to
the port whence she sailed.[119] This, of course, secured decided
advantages to Southern slave-traders. The most radical provision of the
act was that which directed the President to "make such regulations and
arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and
removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes,
mulattoes, or persons of colour, as may be so delivered and brought
within their jurisdiction;" and to appoint an agent in Africa to receive
such Negroes.
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