_Chapter I_

INTRODUCTORY.

1. Plan of the Monograph.
2. The Rise of the English Slave-Trade.


1. ~Plan of the Monograph.~ This monograph proposes to set forth the
efforts made in the United States of America, from early colonial times
until the present, to limit and suppress the trade in slaves between
Africa and these shores.

The study begins with the colonial period, setting forth in brief the
attitude of England and, more in detail, the attitude of the planting,
farming, and trading groups of colonies toward the slave-trade. It deals
next with the first concerted effort against the trade and with the
further action of the individual States. The important work of the
Constitutional Convention follows, together with the history of the
trade in that critical period which preceded the Act of 1807. The
attempt to suppress the trade from 1807 to 1830 is next recounted. A
chapter then deals with the slave-trade as an international problem.
Finally the development of the crises up to the Civil War is studied,
together with the steps leading to the final suppression; and a
concluding chapter seeks to sum up the results of the investigation.
Throughout the monograph the institution of slavery and the interstate