The question of slavery\u2019s future figured prominently when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Some delegates from Northern states hoped to banish the practice. They ultimately abandoned their fight in the face of the reality that the Southern states would rather bolt the convention, thereby dooming the effort to create a more effective national government, than agree to abolish slavery. The opponents of slavery, however, won one concession. The Constitution provided that after a twenty-year wait, Congress could ban the importation of enslaved people. In March 1807, at President Thomas Jefferson’s request, Congress did just that. On January 1, 1808, the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves went into effect. It was the first U.S. law that broke with the transatlantic slave system, and it curtailed U.S. participation in the international slave trade. SHAFR historians ranked the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves as the eighth-best U.S. foreign policy decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The question of slavery\u2019s future figured prominently when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Some delegates from Northern states hoped to banish the practice. They ultimately abandoned their fight in the face of the reality that the Southern states would rather bolt the convention, thereby dooming the effort to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":880,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-decisions"],"acf":{"add_section":[{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Constitutional Convention","add_section_content":"The debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention largely, but not solely, pitted delegates from Northern states against those from Southern states. Many Northern states had either abolished or were moving to abolish slavery. In contrast, Southern states, and particularly states in the Deep South, viewed slavery as the lifeblood of their economies. They threatened to walk out of the convention if their demands were not met.\r\n\r\nOne of the specific issues that the delegates argued over was whether to ban the transatlantic slave trade. The Continental Congress had banned it in October 1774. The Articles of Confederation subsequently shifted responsibility for deciding whether to allow the import of enslaved people to the states. By 1787, Georgia was the only state that permitted it without restriction. North Carolina imposed a prohibitive tariff on the import of enslaved people that same year, and South Carolina temporarily suspended the practice. The importation of enslaved people was banned in every other state.\r\n\r\nDespite the consensus that the United States should not participate in the transatlantic slave trade, Georgia and South Carolina demanded that the new constitution deny the national government the power to ban the import of enslaved people. Both delegations went even further; they also wanted to bar the national government from having the power to tax the import of enslaved people because such tariffs could be used to make the slave trade prohibitively expensive. Georgia and South Carolina both favored an unfettered international slave trade because they had lost as much as one-third of their enslaved populations during the Revolutionary War to fighting, disease, and the British push for emancipation. For both states, the slave trade was the cheapest way to rebuild their economies.","add_image":1793,"image_position":"bottom","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Compromise ","add_section_content":"A draft version of the Constitution presented to the convention in August gave Georgia and South Carolina what they wanted. Northern delegates immediately objected. Some stressed the immorality of the slave trade, calling it a crime against \u201cthe most sacred laws of humanity.\u201d Others attacked the provision on economic grounds. If the new constitution exempted the importation of enslaved people from being taxed, Northern states would bear more of the burden of financing the national government.\r\n\r\nIn the end, the delegates compromised. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution barred the national government from prohibiting the import of enslaved people until 1808 and capped the tariff on the slave trade at $10 per person. The provision avoided using the word \u201cslave\u201d in deference to delegates who saw slavery as an abomination that had no place in the founding document of a free society. The euphemistic language aside, the point was clear: twenty years after the Constitution was expected to take effect, Congress could ban participation in the transatlantic slave trade. In the interim, it could tax it.","add_image":"","image_position":"null","background":false,"quote_content":"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. ","quote_footer":"Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1. United States Constitution","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"quote","add_section_title":"","add_section_content":"The provision avoided using the word \u201cslave\u201d in deference to delegates who viewed slavery as an abomination that did not belong in the founding document of a free society. The euphemistic language aside, the point was clear: Twenty years after the Constitution was expected to take effect, Congress could ban participation in the translative slave trade. In the interim, it could tax the slave trade.","add_image":"","image_position":"null","background":false,"quote_content":"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. ","quote_footer":"Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, United States Constitution","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"Jefferson\u2019s Call to Action","add_section_content":"On December 12, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson submitted his annual message to Congress\u2014the equivalent of the State of the Union address today. In it, he urged Congress \u201cto withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.\u201d Despite the roundabout prose, Americans understood what Jefferson was requesting. He wanted Congress to end U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade.\r\n\r\nJefferson was not looking to end slavery. But he did hope that an import ban would spur its demise. Although he owned six hundred enslaved people over his lifetime, he had repeatedly denounced the practice as a \u201cmoral depravity\u201d\u00a0and a \u201chideous blot\u201d on the United States. In a draft paragraph cut from the final version of the Declaration of Independence, he called for ending the transatlantic slave trade. In 1778, he drafted a Virginia law that prohibited the importation of enslaved people. Six years later, he argued for banning slavery in the Northwest Territory.\u00a0Jefferson, like many other Americans at the time, insisted that a distinction existed between owning slaves where the practice was legal, which they claimed was permissible because of the sanctity of property rights, and the right to press free people into servitude, which they deemed immoral.","add_image":1360,"image_position":"right","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Politics of the Importation Ban","add_section_content":"Beyond his personal belief about the impact of a ban on the importation of enslaved people, Jefferson\u2019s call for Congress to act reflected his assessment of public sentiment. In the two decades since the Constitution had been written, popular support for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself had increased in the United States. By 1806, a majority of states had either banned slavery or enacted laws phasing it out. Congress had passed laws limiting some aspects of the international slave trade, and only Georgia and South Carolina permitted the importation of enslaved people.\r\n\r\nJefferson also saw the foreign policy dangers to the United States of continuing the international slave trade. France, Great Britain, and other countries had either passed or were considering laws to ban it, putting pressure on the United States to do likewise. Jefferson recognized that if European powers enforced their bans on the slave trade, U.S. slaving vessels could be seized on the high seas, potentially embroiling the United States in conflict. The young, weak country was not equipped for that challenge.","add_image":1810,"image_position":"right","background":true,"quote_content":"to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.","quote_footer":"Thomas Jefferson, Annual Message to Congress, December 12, 1806","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"Congress Acts","add_section_content":"Reflecting how much the debate had changed over two decades, Congress moved quickly on Jefferson\u2019s request. That speed partly reflected greater revulsion at the inhumanity of the transatlantic slave trade. But it also reflected changing assessments of self-interest. By the early 1800s the population of enslaved people in the South had grown so large that the domestic slave trade had become a profitable business. The offspring of enslaved parents were themselves enslaved and could be sold to the highest bidder. By the early 1800s, Jefferson\u2019s home state of Virginia was exporting slaves to other Southern states. These changes led many southerners to see ending the international slave trade as a way to eliminate competition and increase the value of the enslaved people they owned.\r\n\r\nOn March 2, 1807, four months to the day after he asked Congress to act, Jefferson signed legislation to \u201cprohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States\u2026from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.\u201d The law also specified that Americans who participated in the international slave trade faced prosecution, fines, and imprisonment. The law went into effect on January 1, 1808, the first day it could legally take effect.","add_image":3477,"image_position":"right","background":false,"quote_content":"to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.","quote_footer":"Thomas Jefferson, Annual Message to Congress, December 12, 1806","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Legacy of the Ban on the Importation of Slaves","add_section_content":"The ban on the import of slaves dramatically curtailed U.S. participation in the international slave trade. The illegal smuggling of enslaved people continued, especially in the Deep South, where enforcement was weak or nonexistent. The act also did not, as Jefferson hoped, lead to the end of slavery. The enslaved population of the United States rose from 1.2 million to nearly 4 million people over the next half century. Despite what it failed to accomplish, the law set an important precedent in the struggle to abolish slavery. It was the United States\u2019 first legislative break with the transatlantic slave system, and it ended official sanction of the heinous practice by which Africans were forced into servitude. The act also had consequences for U.S. foreign policy. It signaled to European powers that the United States would not contest the growing international consensus to end the international slave trade, and it laid the basis for the United States to sign several treaties with Great Britain to conduct anti-slavery patrols.","add_image":"","image_position":"null","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""}],"add_testimonials":[{"author_name":"Kimber Quinney","add_testimonial_content":"The institution of slavery is an abomination. The federal rejection of the slave trade (in spite of states\u2019 efforts to maintain the forced labor system and exploit African Americans) was central to advancing U.S. interests, given that the new nation defined itself as a defender of freedom.","add_university_department":"Assistant Professor of History, California State University San Marcos","add_image":1434},{"author_name":"Nicole Phelps","add_testimonial_content":"The Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves is an example of Americans recognizing a mistake in their past and taking a serious step to change course and pursue a policy more in line with the values articulated in the Declaration of Independence.","add_university_department":"Professor of History, University of Vermont","add_image":""},{"author_name":"Jessica Chapman","add_testimonial_content":"The Act prohibiting the importation of slaves, though it fell well short of ending slavery in the United States, rendered the heinous slave trade illegal. This stands out as one of the few items on the list that contributed to ending\u2014rather than generating\u2014human rights abuses.","add_university_department":" Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Professor of History Chair, Williams College","add_image":1831}],"learn_more_title":"Learn More","add_learn_more_content":"Primary documents, books, articles, and more on the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves.","add_sources":[{"add_sources_title":"Primary Documents","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"The Constitution of the United States of America","url":"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/founding-docs\/constitution-transcript","target":""},"source_content":"Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution empowered Congress to ban the importation of enslaved people beginning in 1808.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Thomas Jefferson, \u201cSixth Annual Message,\u201d December 2, 1806","url":"https:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/19th_century\/jeffmes6.asp","target":""},"source_content":"In his 1806 message to Congress, Jefferson urged Congress to ban the transatlantic slave trade.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, March 2, 1807","url":"https:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/19th_century\/sl004.asp","target":""},"source_content":"The text of the legislation prohibiting the importation of enslaved people into the United States.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Books","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"WW. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638\u20131870","url":"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/02023269\/","target":""},"source_content":"A classic analysis of the transatlantic slave trade that includes a discussion of Congress\u2019s decision in 1807 to ban the importation of enslaved people.","source_image":1841}]},{"add_sources_title":"Articles","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"History.com, \u201cCongress Abolishes the African Slave Trade\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.history.com\/this-day-in-history\/march-2\/congress-abolishes-the-african-slave-trade","target":""},"source_content":"A short summary of the events leading Congress to ban the import of enslaved people.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Politico.com, \u201cCongress Votes to Ban Slave Importation, March 2, 1807\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/03\/02\/congress-votes-to-ban-slave-importation-march-2-1807-430820","target":""},"source_content":"A short summary of the events leading Congress to ban the import of enslaved people.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Lectures and Podcasts","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Ben Franklin\u2019s World, \u201cThe Domestic Slave Trade\u201d","url":"https:\/\/benfranklinsworld.com\/episode-312-the-domestic-slave-trade\/","target":""},"source_content":"Historian Joshua D. Rothman discusses the history of the North American slave trade and how Congress came to ban the transatlantic slave trade.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"NPR, \u201cEnd of Slave Trade Meant New Normal for America\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2008\/01\/10\/17988106\/end-of-slave-trade-meant-new-normal-for-america","target":""},"source_content":"Acclaimed historian Eric Foner explains the origins of a historical moment tied to one of the darkest eras in U.S. history.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Timeline","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Egrove, \u201cTimeline of Selected Laws to Restrict and Abolish the Slave Trade, 1794 to 1870\u201d","url":"https:\/\/egrove.olemiss.edu\/exhibit\/exhibits\/a-timeline-of-selected-laws-to-restrict-and-abolish-the-slave-trade-1794-to-1870\/","target":""},"source_content":"","source_image":""}]}],"add_bottom_title":"","add_bottom_image":"","add_background_image":"","add_bottom_button":"","add_year":"1807"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/build.mini.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/service-pnp-cph-3a10000-3a17000-3a17600-3a17645r.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3524,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/3524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}