prohibition of the African slave trade with more binding efficacy than those they have themselves devised.  A just and generous confidence in their good faith on this subject exhibited by friendly Powers will be far more efficacious than persistent efforts to induce this Government to assume the exercise of powers which it does not possess....  We trust, therefore, that no unnecessary discussions on this matter will be introduced into your negotiations.  If, unfortunately, this reliance should prove ill-founded, you will decline continuing negotiations on your side, and transfer them to us at home....[88]

This attitude of the conservative leaders of the South, if it meant anything, meant that individual State action could, when it pleased, reopen the slave-trade.  The radicals were, of course, not satisfied with any veiling of the ulterior purpose of the new slave republic, and attacked the constitutional provision violently.  “If,” said one, “the clause be carried into the permanent government, our whole movement is defeated.  It will abolitionize the Border Slave States—­it will brand our institution.  Slavery cannot share a government with Democracy,—­it cannot bear a brand upon it; thence another revolution ... having achieved one revolution to escape democracy at the North, it must still achieve another to escape it at the South.  That it will ultimately triumph none can doubt."[89]

91. Attitude of the United States. In the North, with all the hesitation in many matters, there existed unanimity in regard to the slave-trade; and the new Lincoln government ushered in the new policy of uncompromising suppression by hanging the first American slave-trader who ever suffered the extreme penalty of the law.[90] One of the earliest acts of President Lincoln was a step which had been necessary since 1808, but had never been taken, viz., the unification of the whole work of suppression into the hands of one responsible department.  By an order, dated May 2, 1861, Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior, was charged with the execution of the slave-trade laws,[91] and he immediately began energetic work.  Early in 1861, as soon as the withdrawal of the Southern members untied the hands of Congress, two appropriations of $900,000 each were made to suppress the slave trade, the first appropriations commensurate with the vastness of the task.  These were followed by four appropriations of $17,000 each in the years 1863 to 1867, and two of $12,500 each in 1868 and 1869.[92] The first work of the new secretary was to obtain a corps of efficient assistants.  To this end, he assembled all the marshals of the loyal seaboard States at New York, and gave them instruction and opportunity to inspect actual slavers.  Congress also, for the first time, offered them proper compensation.[93] The next six months showed the effect of this policy in the fact that five vessels were seized and condemned, and four slave-traders were convicted and suffered the penalty of their crimes.  “This is probably the largest number [of convictions] ever obtained, and certainly the only ones for many years."[94]