In the first Congress under the United States Constitution, Josiah Parker of Virginia attempted to insert a clause in the Tariff Bill to levy a ten dollar tax on every slave brought into this country on foreign ships, and especially those of New England. Parker was supported in this by two other Virginians, Theodoric Bland and James Madison. In a March 1790 Virginia petition to Congress, the slave trade was denounced as “an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature.”
More @ Circa 1865
75 years later, 600k casualties. The US lost a lot of economic potential because the argument went kenetic.
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