A Slave Cabin

The rapid extension of settlements in the Southwest after the War of 1812-15, and the great profits derived there from the cultivation of cotton, not only caused the revival of the African slave-trade, in spite of prohibitory laws, but it gave occasion to a rival domestic slave-trade, of which the national capital had become one of the centers, where it was carried on by professional slave traders.

They bought up the slaves of impoverished planters of Maryland and Virginia, and sold them at large profits in the cotton-growing districts of the South and West. This new traffic, which included many of the worst features of the African slave-trade, was severely denounced by John Randolph, of Virginia, as " heinous and abominable, inhuman and illegal." This opinion was founded on facts reported by a committee of inquiry. Gov. D. R. Williams, of South Carolina, denounced the traffic as " remorseless and cruel "; a " ceaseless dragging along the streets and highways of a crowd of suffering victims to minister to insatiable avarice," condemned alike by " enlightened humanity, wise policy, and the prayers of the just."

The governor urged that it had a tendency to introduce slaves of all descriptions from other States, "defiling the delightful avocations of private life" " by the presence of convicts and male-factors." The legislature of South Carolina passed an act forbidding the introduction of slaves from other States. A similar act was passed by the Georgia legislature. This legislation was frequently resorted to on occasions of alarm, but the profitable extension of cotton cultivation and the demand for slave labor overcame all scruples. Within two years after its passage the prohibitory act of South Carolina was repealed.

The inter-State slave-traffic was carried on extensively until slavery was abolished in 1863. A Richmond newspaper, in 1861, urging Virginia to join the Southern Confederacy, which had prohibited the traffic between them and States that would not join them, gave as a most urgent reason for such an act that, if it were not accomplished, the " Old Dominion " would lose this trade, amounting annually to from $13,000,000 to $20,000,000.