3-2-16 Thomas Jefferson signs Law Outlawing Slave Trade in 2:00

[Omaha Steve]

http://laborhistoryin2.podbean.com/e/march-2-2016-thomas-jefferson-signs-law-outlawing-slave-trade/




March 2, 2016
On this day in Labor History the year was 1807. That was the day that President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation outlawing the trans-Atlantic slave trade from bringing enslaved Africans to the United States. At the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, the authors had decided to revisit the question of slavery after two decades.

2:00 minute audio at link.

[Nye Bevan]

1. However, he still owned hundreds of slaves of his own.

All that unpaid labor was very convenient when it came to building Monticello.

[brush]

2. What a hypocrite.

Did he stop screwing his enslaved mistress Sally Hennings, with whom he had several childred afterwards?

And another thing, he never freed his enslaved people before he died.

[Omaha Steve]

3. Why not say thanks to the abolitionists that tried to do something positive while your at it

In the end it didn't accomplish much. But it was a start. One foot in front of the other.

OS

[brush]

4. I like that. John Brown and other abolistionists deserve praise over hypocrite Jefferson.

[maxsolomon]

9. he was a flawed man

he did a lot of good things; he failed to do a lot of other good things.

outlawing the importation of slaves, good thing. freeing his enslaved children, good thing. too bad he couldn't have freed all slaves.

From Wiki: Hemings' children lived in Jefferson's house and were trained as domestic servants and artisans. Jefferson freed all of Hemings' children: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston, as they came of age (they were the only slave family freed by Jefferson).

[1939]

5. Jefferson

Old TJ and the rest of the Virginia planters were going broke. Slave grown tobacco just wasn't cutting it to keep up the plantation life style. By ending the importation of slaves just as the cotton boom was taking off, Virginia planters went into a new cash crop which was breeding slaves, selling them, and shipping them off to the rising cotton kingdoms in the south. Virginia plantations like Monticello concentrated on cranking out strapping young black laborers for resale.

[brush]

6. So it was just a self-interest move by Jefferson to sign that law

He was lessening the competition for his slave breeding business.

Wonder if he pitched in in the breed aspect?

He sure was busy enough with the 5 kids he had with his enslaved mistress Sally Hennings.

[Omaha Steve]

7. The law never worked because of lack of enforcment

But it was a step by the abolitionist movement that lead to the Civil War.

OS

[1939]

10. It actually worked pretty well.

Between the US Navy and the Royal Navy patrols off the coast of Africa, the import of slaves slowed to a trickle. Yes, there were some smugglers who evaded the patrols (there always will be) but the massive movement of slaves from Africa to the western hemisphere did end. Breeding slaves and "selling them down the river" became the big business. The arrival of ships loaded with slaves came to an end and what import there was was short ranged smuggling of handfuls in small ships from the islands.

[Omaha Steve]

11. The way I read it was that was more starting in 1820's

http://www1.american.edu/ted/slave.htm




The Legacy of 1808: Post-Abolition Slave Trade

It is difficult to explain why it was moralist sentiment was not strong enough to carry the day. One possible explanation is that even though there was strong sentiment to abolish the trade in Congress, constituencies in the South were able to exert sufficient pressure to weaken the force of the law. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention could not have forseen the effect that Ely Whitney's cotton gin would have on Southern agriculture. The decades following the abolition of the slave trade show that United States did not have enough will to even enforce the laws they had passed. Illegal slave trade continued overland through Texas and Florida, while ships continued to smuggle slaves in through South Carolina.27 Even though Congress passed a law in 1820 making participation in the slave trade an act of piracy and punishable by death, it was not strongly enforced.

In the 1820's, the nature of the illegal slave trade changed somewhat. US ships were now primarily involved in the transport of slaves from Africa to other countries in North and South America like Cuba and Brazil. The British wanted cooperation from the Americans in the form of the mutual right of search and seizure. The Americans opposed this principle, not so much out of a desire to continue the slave trade, but out of a sense of national pride and an appeal to the freedom of the seas.28 The US's refusal to enforce its own anti-slave trade laws, as well as cooperate with other nations allowed the slave trade to continue for decades to come.

Conclusion

As we have seen from the case study of the 1808 law prohibiting the importation of slaves, the slave trade was an issue not easily defined and confronted. Despite its overt moralistic and humanitarian concerns, issues of commerce and politics overrode any other concerns in the formation of that aspect of US trade policy. Even before the heated arguments over slavery concentrated on the economic well-being of the South and the ideological differences between free state and slave, slavery was a controversial issue. It is ironic that the pragmatists argued that their provisions for the bill would ensure that it would be effectively enacted, when in truth it was too weak for real enforcement. This raises interesting questions as to the appropriate balance between humanitarian concerns and the practical commercial, legal and political matters that affect the formation of trade policy.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Sort of the whole "Don't ask, don't tell" of the day.

An attempt at compromise that failed to address the greater issue.