Slave Trade Act of 1807

The United States federal law that prohibited importing enslaved people from abroad beginning January 1, 1808, while leaving slavery and the domestic slave trade legal.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9: A constitutional provision that barred Congress from prohibiting the international slave trade before 1808. It set the earliest date Congress could enact the importation ban.
Constitutional Convention: The 1787 meeting that drafted the United States Constitution. Delegates negotiated the temporary protection that delayed federal action against slave imports.
United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment: The 1865 amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, with an exception for punishment for crime. It ended slavery itself, a system the 1807 law left intact.
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves: A 1794 United States federal law restricting the use of American ships and ports in the slave trade. It regulated American participation abroad but did not yet prohibit bringing enslaved people into the country.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: A federal law requiring the return of people who escaped slavery across state lines. It addressed enforcement of slavery within the United States, unlike the 1807 law’s focus on overseas importation.
Slave Trade Clause: The constitutional provision that prevented Congress from banning the international slave trade before 1808. The clause made 1808 the first constitutionally permitted date for the ban.
Domestic slave trade in the United States: The forced buying and selling of enslaved people within the United States. With foreign importation prohibited, domestic trafficking continued and expanded.
Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves: The 1807 United States statute that barred importing enslaved people into the country from 1808. It is the statute commonly meant by the act’s short title.
United States Revenue Cutter Service: A federal maritime service that enforced customs laws and later became part of the Coast Guard. Its cutters helped patrol against illegal slave-trading voyages.
Thomas Jefferson: The third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. Jefferson urged Congress in 1806 to prohibit the importation of enslaved people.

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