The South in general
wished to prevent any action which might by implication stigmatize the
slaveholding regime, and was on guard also against precedents tending to
infringe state rights. The North, on the other hand, was largely divided
between a resolve to stop the sanction of slavery and a desire to enact
an effective law in the premises directly at issue. The outcome was a law
which might be evaded with relative ease wherever public sanction was weak,
but which nevertheless proved fairly effective in operation.
When slave prices rose to high levels after the war of 1812 systematic
smuggling began to prevail from Amelia Island on the Florida border, and on
a smaller scale on the bayous of the Barataria district below New Orleans;
but these operations were checked upon the passage of a congressional act
in 1818 increasing the rewards to informers. Another act in the following
year directed the President to employ armed vessels for police in both
African and American waters, and incidentally made provisions contemplating
the return of captured slaves to Africa. Finally Congress by an act of 1820
declared the maritime slave trade to be piracy.[33] Smuggling thereafter
diminished though it never completely ceased.
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