SION; SENVtTS; FnEEDOM.
Slavery having been abolished in the 'United States, it Is only as affecting the future rights and liabilities of those formerly slaves that the elaborate slave codes of those states re cognizing the status can be of interest or value.
The traffic in slaves. or the buying and selling of slaves fin. profit. It is either foreign or domestic. The former is when the trade includes transportation from a foreign state; the latter, when con fined within a single state or states connected in a federal union.
The history of the slave-trade is as old as the authentic records of the race. Joseph was sold to Ishmaelitish slave-traders, and Egypt has been a mart for the traffic from that day to this. Tliti negro early became a subject of it. In every slave market he has been found, and never as a master except in Africa. The Roman mart, however ex fribiled a variety of all the conquered races of the world. At Bristol, in England, for many years about the eleventh century, a briak trade was car ried on in purchasing Englishmen and exporting them to Ireland for sale. And William of Maims bury states that it seems to be a natural custom with the people of Northumberland to sell their nearest relations.
The African slave-trade on the eastern coast has been carried ori with India and Arabia from a period difficult to be established, and was continued with British India while British ships-of-war hovered on the western coast to capture the pirates engaged in the same trade. On the western coast tho trade dates from 1442. The Spaniards for a tirne monopolized it. The Portuguese soon rivalled them in its prosecution. Sir John Hawkins, in 1562, was the first Englishman who engaged in it; and queen Elizabeth was the first Englishwoman known tc share in the profits.
Irnmen se numbers of African negroes were trans ported to the New Wald, althouglr thousands were landed in England and France and owned and used as servants. The large profits of the trade
stimulated the avarice of bad men to forget all the claims of humanity ; and the horrors of the middle passage, though much exaggerated, were undoubt edly very great.
The Amerioan colonies raised the first voice in Christendom for its suppression ; but the interests of British merchants were too powerfffl with the king, who stifled their complaints. The constitution of the United States, in 1789, was the first govern mental act towards its abolition. By it, congress was forbidden to prohibit the trade until the year 1808. This limitation was made at the suggestion of South Carolina and Georgia, aided by some of the New England states. Yet both of those states, hy state action, prohibited the trade many years before the time limited,—Georgia as early as 1793. In 1807, an act of congrose was passed which pro hibited the trade after 1808 ; and by subsequent acts it was declared piracy. The federal legislation on the subject will be found in acts of congress passed respectively March 22, 1794, May 10, 1800, March 2, 1807, April 20, 1818, March 3, 1819, and May 15, 1820. These several acts, with the deci sions under them, will be found collected in Bright Ly's U. S. Digest, 835, etc. In the year 1807, the British parliament also passed an acwfbr the aboli tion cf the elave-trade,—the consummation of a parliamentary struggle continued for nineteen years, and fourteen years after a similar act had been adopted by Georgia. Great efforts have been made by Great Britain, by treaties and otherwise, to suppress this trade. The immense profits, how-, ever, induce reckless men to continuo it still,—the chief market for their slaves being at this time the Spanish West Indies. See Buxton's Slave Trade, etc.; Carey's Slave-Trade, Foreign and Do mestic; Cobb's Historical Sketch of Slavery.