Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/163

 

 Fines and Imprisonment with Rewards for Informers were not Sufficient to Stop Slave Smuggling — Workings of the Prohibitive Legislation Illustrated by the Doings of the Knife-Inventor Bowie and the Pirate Lafitte — Slaves Sold by the Pound — Influences that Led to the Piracy Act.

the smoke of the Amelia Island camp-fires in their eyes and nostrils our national legislators undertook the task of making the dead law of 1807-08 a live one. Both houses brought in bills, but adroit politicians were found in Congress to see that the power of the bills was weakened, if not destroyed, and in this case these politicians succeeded in ruining the bill altogether.

The bill as passed was entitled "An act in addition to ‘an act to prohibit the introduction [importation] of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January in the year of our Lord 1808,' and to repeal certain parts of the same." It was approved on April 20, 1818.

It might with truth have been entitled "An act to promote treachery among smugglers.' Congress supposed that by appealing to the cupidity of the lawless, and offering a cash premium to those smugglers who