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.
Your claim that Jefferson attempted to outlaw the slave trade via the DOI was indeed nonsense. The DOI was a rhetorical instrument, it was not anything resembling legislation. Had his anti-slave trade clause been left in, it still would not have had any legal effect on the trade one way or another.
Thanks for admitting that deep south states wanted to keep importing slaves. Now if you will just agree that one reason some Virginians wanted to abolish the trade was partially to raise the value of their own “livestock,” by limiting supply, we’ll be more or less in agreement. The deep south states, of course, who were the market for the VA slaves, wanted to keep the trade going for exactly the opposite reason. They wanted to keep the price down.