Certainly the carnival of lawlessness that
succeeded the Act of 1807, and that which preceded final suppression in
1861, were glaring examples of the failure of the efforts to suppress
the slave-trade by mere law.
95. ~The Economic Movement.~ Economic measures against the trade were
those which from the beginning had the best chance of success, but which
were least tried. They included tariff measures; efforts to encourage
the immigration of free laborers and the emigration of the slaves;
measures for changing the character of Southern industry; and, finally,
plans to restore the economic balance which slavery destroyed, by
raising the condition of the slave to that of complete freedom and
responsibility. Like the political efforts, these rested in part on a
moral basis; and, as legal enactments, they were also themselves often
political measures. They differed, however, from purely moral and
political efforts, in having as a main motive the economic gain which a
substitution of free for slave labor promised.
The simplest form of such efforts was the revenue duty on slaves that
existed in all the colonies. This developed into the prohibitive tariff,
and into measures encouraging immigration or industrial improvements.
The colonization movement was another form of these efforts; it was
inadequately conceived, and not altogether sincere, but it had a sound,
although in this case impracticable, economic basis.
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