This bill received the approval of President Jefferson, March 2, 1807, and became thus the "Act to prohibit the importation of Slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight."[65] The debates in the Senate were not reported. Those in the House were prolonged and bitter, and hinged especially on the disposal of the slaves, the punishment of offenders, and the coast-trade. Men were continually changing their votes, and the bill see-sawed backward and forward, in committee and out, until the House was thoroughly worn out. On the whole, the strong anti-slavery men, like Bidwell and Sloan, were outgeneraled by Southerners, like Early and Williams; and, considering the immense moral backing of the anti-slavery party from the Revolutionary fathers down, the bill of 1807 can hardly be regarded as a great anti-slavery victory. 60. ~Enforcement of the Act.~ The period so confidently looked forward to by the constitutional fathers had at last arrived; the slave-trade was prohibited, and much oratory and poetry were expended in celebration of the event. In the face of this, let us see how the Act of 1807 was enforced and what it really accomplished. It is noticeable, in the first place, that there was no especial set of machinery provided for the enforcement of this act. The work fell first to the Secretary of the Treasury, as head of the customs collection. Then, through the activity of cruisers, the Secretary of the Navy gradually came to have oversight, and eventually the whole matter was lodged with him, although the Departments of State and War were more or less active on different occasions. Later, at the advent of the Lincoln government, the Department of the Interior was charged with the enforcement of the slave-trade laws. It would indeed be surprising if, amid so much uncertainty and shifting of responsibility, the law were not poorly enforced. Poor enforcement, moreover, in the years 1808 to 1820 meant far more than at almost any other period; for these years were, all over the European world, a time of stirring economic change, and the set which forces might then take would in a later period be unchangeable without a cataclysm. Perhaps from 1808 to 1814, in the midst of agitation and war, there was some excuse for carelessness. From 1814 on, however, no such palliation existed, and the law was probably enforced as the people who made it wished it enforced.