86. ~Southern Policy in 1860.~ The matter did not rest with mere words. During the session of the Vicksburg Convention, an "African Labor Supply Association" was formed, under the presidency of J.D.B. De Bow, editor of _De Bow's Review_, and ex-superintendent of the seventh census. The object of the association was "to promote the supply of African labor."[31] In 1857 the committee of the South Carolina legislature to whom the Governor's slave-trade message was referred made an elaborate report, which declared in italics: _"The South at large does need a re-opening of the African slave trade."_ Pettigrew, the only member who disagreed to this report, failed of re-election. The report contained an extensive argument to prove the kingship of cotton, the perfidy of English philanthropy, and the lack of slaves in the South, which, it was said, would show a deficit of six hundred thousand slaves by 1878.[32] In Georgia, about this time, an attempt to expunge the slave-trade prohibition in the State Constitution lacked but one vote of passing.[33] From these slower and more legal movements came others less justifiable. The long argument on the "apprentice" system finally brought a request to the collector of the port at Charleston, South Carolina, from E. Lafitte & Co., for a clearance to Africa for the purpose of importing African "emigrants." The collector appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb of Georgia, who flatly refused to take the bait, and replied that if the "emigrants" were brought in as slaves, it would be contrary to United States law; if as freemen, it would be contrary to their own State law.[34] In Louisiana a still more radical movement was attempted, and a bill passed the House of Representatives authorizing a company to import two thousand five hundred Africans, "indentured" for fifteen years "at least." The bill lacked but two votes of passing the Senate.[35] It was said that the _Georgian_, of Savannah, contained a notice of an agricultural society which "unanimously resolved to offer a premium of $25 for the best specimen of a live African imported into the United States within the last twelve months."[36]