The United States and the Slave Trade
The United States and the Slave Trade
An Ambivalent Foe
This chapter examines slavery and slave trade in American politics. By the time the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in July 1776 that “all men are created equal,” there were thousands of African slaves in North America. The U.S. Constitution, drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, is oddly evasive on the issue of slavery. Though the federal government could not constitutionally ban the importation of slaves until 1808, the states had begun to prohibit the importation of slaves on their own even by the time of the Constitutional Convention. By the 1820s, the law of nations was in an ambiguous and transitional state with respect to the slave trade. Still, international law could no longer directly authorize slave trading. Instead, each country had to decide on its own, either through legislation or ratification of theories.
Keywords: slavery, slave trade, American politics, United States, slave trading, Declaration of Independence, African slaves, slave importation
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