on the enslavement of the laboring race very soon made the dominant race
active defenders of slavery. From that time the system in the South was
one of slowly but steadily increasing rigor, until, just before
1860, its last development took the form of legal enactments for the
re-enslavement of free negroes, in default of their leaving the State
in which they resided. Parallel with this increase of rigor, there was a
steady change in the character of the system. It tended very steadily to
lose its original patriarchal character, and take the aspect of a purely
commercial speculation. After 1850, the commercial aspect began to be
the rule in the black belt of the Gulf States. The plantation knew only
the overseer; so many slaves died to so many bales of cotton; and the
slave population began to lose all human connection with the dominant
race.

The acquisition of Louisiana in 1803 more than doubled the area of the
United States, and far more than doubled the area of the slave system.
Slavery had been introduced into Louisiana, as usual, by custom, and had
then been sanctioned by Spanish and French law. It is true that Congress
did not forbid slavery in the new territory of Louisiana; but Congress
did even worse than this; under the guise of forbidding the importation
of slaves into Louisiana, by the act of March 26, 1804, organizing
the territory, the phrase "except by a citizen of the United States,
removing into said territory for actual settlement, and being at the
time of such removal bona fide owner of such slave or slaves," impliedly
legitimated the domestic slave trade to Louisiana, and legalized slavery
wherever population should extend between the Mississippi and the
Rocky Mountains. The Congress of 1803-05, which passed the act, should
rightfully bear the responsibility for all the subsequent growth of
slavery, and for all the difficulties in which it involved the South and
the country.