socialmedian: Why 1808 Marked a Pivotal Moment in US History

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Why 1808 Marked a Pivotal Moment in US History

Source: History News Network

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

The year 1808 is often overlooked when historians and commentators discuss key moments in American history. Why was 1808 a pivotal year in American history? Its significance has little to do with the fact that James Madison was elected to succeed his friend Thomas Jefferson as President, extending the Democratic-Republican party’s hold on the White House and increasing Federalist frustration, or with the new nation’s early drift toward future hostilities with the British. Instead, the signal event of the year was the end of the African slave trade. Over the subsequent decades, this ban on the importation of slaves from overseas dramatically reshaped the institution of slavery in the United States.

The end of the foreign slave trade limited forever the size of the slave population in the United States. After 1808, the size of the nation’s slave population depended on the natural increase of the slave population and the scope of slave smuggling. Hence southern slaveholders, eager to secure enough slave labor to cultivate their stapl

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