Nonsense. The relevant section of the DOI had nothing at all to do with outlawing the slave trade. It merely (less than entirely truthfully) attempted to blame the King for the existence of the slave trade, as if it had been forced on Americans.
Here's the text of his rough draft.
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
It is perhaps relevant that VA, even at this time, was a net exporter of slaves to the deeper south, thus had a financial incentive in restricting the competition of the Atlantic trade. The slave states further south had an entirely different perspective on the trade, which is why the Constitution protected it for 20 years.
“Truth is sincerity; and in all we say and do, we must be sincere. We must not make false impressions, directly or indirectly.
“There are many ways by which we may mislead and deceive others by what we say. Some of the ways are:
1. Saying a thing when we know it is not true.
2. Saying a thing when we do not know whether it is true or not.
3. Prevaricating.
4. Misrepresenting.
5. Exaggerating.
“All these are different forms of untruth.”
I think most here would appreciate you being more forthright in your postings.
Jefferson was making two major statements: the first was to condemn the King and his associates for underwriting and coercing the colonies to import slaves. The second was an effort to condemn the trade and gain support for the cessation of the trade.
Before their separation from England, many of the colonies wanted a cessation of the slave trade due to the fact that there was no adequate employment at that time for the Negro population. The British Crown refused.
When the separation took place, from that moment the New England States assumed the position, in regard to slavery, which Great Britain had previously occupied.
The evil of this traffic had become apparent to many of the people of the South, and when the DOI was being outlined, some in the South openly spoke for ways that would inhibit this traffic of importing human beings from Africa.
The New England slave-traders resisted the South. The New England States owned the shipping and distilleries, and were profiting greatly from the slave trade. They accumulated much capital in both.
As seen, Thomas Jefferson had developed his anti-slavery clause in the first draft of the Declaration. The clause was removed by John Adams (MA), Benjamin Franklin (MA), Robert R. Livingston (NY), and Roger Sherman (CT).
Thomas Jefferson had thus, as a Southern legislator and later President, introduced a scathing denunciation of, and protest against, the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence, but had no choice but to withdraw it upon the insistence of Adams and other New Englanders, and two southern states.
His personal notes from the debates included the following commentary:
"Congress proceeded the same day to consider the Declaration of Independence, which had been reported and lain on the table the Friday preceding, and on Monday referred to a committee of the whole. The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many.
"For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. The clause, too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it.
"Our Northern brethren, also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.
Just as a point of reference, the number of slaves imported annually had dropped to approximate average of 18,000 during the decade 1770-1780. However, for the decade of 1780-1790, the yearly average increased to 55,000.
It is important to keep in mind that this trade was conducted in Northern ships.