Immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, South Carolina had passed a law prohibiting the introduction of slaves from foreign countries for a limited period, which was continued by renewal from time to time, and as North Carolina had adopted a permanent law on the subject, the foreign slave trade was now prohibited in all of the states as well as in the public territories, but it continued to be carried on by English, New England and New York traders within the limits of South Carolina and Georgia despite the laws. In 1802, Georgia ceded to the United States all of her territory west of her present limits, including her claim to the Mississippi territory. This cession including in it the Mississippi territory, embraced all of the states of Mississippi and Alabama which was north of the 31st degree of latitude and the compact made with Georgia stipulated that when the population reached the number of 60,000, the ceded territory should be erected into a state on the conditions contained in the ordinance of 1787, "That article only excepted which prohibits slavery." In 1803, on the complaint of South Carolina of the importation, in violation of her laws, of slaves from Africa, as well as of free persons from the French West Indies, Congress passed an act imposing a fine of $1,000 on the captain of a vessel for the importation of such persons in violation of the laws of a state, with forfeiture of the vessel. Next year, however, South Carolina repealed her laws against the African slave trade, and it continued to be lawful there until 1808. In the same year Ohio, erected out of part of the northwestern territory, was admitted into the Union and came in without slavery. In this year Louisiana, which had been re-ceded to France by Spain, was ceded to the United States by the French government, with a stipulation in the treaty of cession that the inhabitants should be secure in their liberty, property and religion and should be admitted, as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution to the enjoyment of the rights of citizens of the United States. The territory thus ceded, embraced as claimed by the United States, all of the territory west of the Mississippi and south of the 31st degree of latitude to the western boundary of the old Spanish province of Florida. Slavery existed in Louisiana at the time of its acquisition, having been established there by the French government, and there could be no question as to the meaning of the guarantee to the inhabitants of security in their property, as the right of property in slaves was universally acknowledged in all of the civilized world, and both of the contracting parties recognized it.