The slavery question in the new territory was a critical one. It was
on account of it that the Federalists had opposed the acquisition; the
American Convention endeavored to secure a provision like that of the
Northwest Ordinance; and the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in
Philadelphia in 1805 prayed "that effectual measures may be adopted
by Congress to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of the
territories of the United States." Nevertheless the whole territory
without regard to latitude was thrown open to the system March 2, 1805.

In spite of this victory for slavery, however, the general force of the
events in Hayti was such as to make more certain the formal closing
of the slave-trade at the end of the twenty-year period for which the
Constitution had permitted it to run. The conscience of the North had
been profoundly stirred, and in the far South was the ever-present fear
of a reproduction of the events in Hayti. The agitation in England
moreover was at last about to bear fruit in the act of 1807 forbidding
the slave-trade. In America it seems from the first to have been an
understood thing, especially by the Southern representatives, that even
if such an act passed it would be only irregularly enforced, and the
debates were concerned rather with the disposal of illegally imported
Africans and with the punishment of those concerned in the importation
than with the proper limitation of the traffic by water.[1] On March 2,
1807, the act was passed forbidding the slave-trade after the close of
the year. In course of time it came very near to being a dead letter,
as may be seen from presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers,
letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports
of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements
on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the
complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. Fernandina and
Galveston were only two of the most notorious ports for smuggling. A