the value of land and buildings.

After the Articles went into operation, an ordinance in regard to the
recapture of fugitive slaves provided that, if the capture was made on
the sea below high-water mark, and the Negro was not claimed, he should
be freed. Matthews of South Carolina demanded the yeas and nays on this
proposition, with the result that only the vote of his State was
recorded against it.[36]

On Tuesday, October 3, 1783, a deputation from the Yearly Meeting of the
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware Friends asked leave to present a
petition. Leave was granted the following day,[37] but no further minute
appears. According to the report of the Friends, the petition was
against the slave-trade; and "though the Christian rectitude of the
concern was by the Delegates generally acknowledged, yet not being
vested with the powers of legislation, they declined promoting any
public remedy against the gross national iniquity of trafficking in the
persons of fellow-men."[38]

The only legislative activity in regard to the trade during the
Confederation was taken by the individual States.[39] Before 1778
Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia had by law
stopped the further importation of slaves, and importation had
practically ceased in all the New England and Middle States, including
Maryland. In consequence of the revival of the slave-trade after the
War, there was then a lull in State activity until 1786, when North
Carolina laid a prohibitive duty, and South Carolina, a year later,
began her series of temporary prohibitions. In 1787-1788 the New England
States forbade the participation of their citizens in the traffic. It
was this wave of legislation against the traffic which did so much to