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FULL TEXT Cambridge, 4th March, 1795.
Reverend Sir, Yesterday I was favored with your queries, and take the first opportunity to give you all the intelligence I am possessed of on the subject of the slave-trade.
1. I do not know when that trade begun among the citizens of this State, but acts were passed for the regulation of negroes, and their manumission, as early as 1703,
2. When a duty of £4 was exacted for every negro imported; for the payment whereof both master and vessel were answerable.† The whole duty was refunded on re-exportation. I have no certain information, but believe it never was carried on to any considerable extent but by way of Rhode Island.
The Drive for State and Federal Protective Tariffs in Early America
Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5,
Every depression generates a clamor among many groups for special privileges at the expense of the rest of society and the American depression that struck in 1784–1785 was no exception. If excess imports were the culprit, then voluntary economizing could help matters, and the press was filled with silly fulminations against ladies wearing imported finery. Less foolish and more pernicious was a drive by the beleaguered and often sub-marginal artisans and manufacturers for the special privilege of protective tariffs.
As early as July 1783, a group of manufacturers from Philadelphia met to petition the Assembly for protection against foreign imports. The following year, a group of Boston manufacturers submitted a similar plea. During the depression year of 1785, the urban artisans banded together in earnest. The Boston manufacturers in twenty-six trades formed The Association of Trades