<P> However, in Congress the proponents of an embargo had the clear advantage . Though the policy of John Adams was more constrained than others, it was still in favor of an arms embargo on Haïti . Federalists were in favor of his policy because they felt it would help to solidify US dominance over the politics and economy of the country, and would help to bring security to white people in the South who were fearful of a hemisphere - wide slave revolt . However, many white people in the South thought Adams' pragmatic policy went too far and was equivalent to full - scale relations with Haïti . While such white people ignored oppression, exploitation and atrocities against enslaved Africans by white slave - traders, and by white slave - owners in Haiti and the USA (and indeed, carried out such abuses themselves), they were adamantly against reaching an agreement with people who had committed atrocities against whites, including white women and children . In parallel to the killings, plundering and rape also occurred . Women and children were generally killed last . White women were "often raped or pushed into forced marriages under threat of death . When George Logan introduced a bill that would outlaw all trade with Saint - Domingue that was not under French control, it signalled a shift to the side of the hard - liners . Weapons could only be aboard ships for their own protection, and any violators of the embargo would lose their cargo as well as their ships . The embargo bill introduced by George Logan was adopted in February 1806, and then renewed again the next year, until it expired in April 1808 . Another embargo had been adopted in 1807 and this one lasted until 1810, though trade did not again take place until the 1820s . However, despite this, official recognition did not happen until 1862, after the southern states had seceded from the US . </P> <P> In the South, white planters viewed the revolution as a large - scale slave revolt and feared that violence in Haïti could inspire similar events in the US . Haïti had an official policy of accepting any black person who arrived on their shores as a citizen . </P> <P> The legislatures of Pennsylvania and South Carolina, as well as the Washington administration, sent help for the French whites of Saint - Domingue . In the debate over whether the US should embargo Haïti, John Taylor of South Carolina spoke for much of the popular sentiment of white people in the South . To him the Haitian revolution was evidence for the idea that "slavery should be permanent in the United States ." He argued against the idea that slavery had caused the revolution, by instead suggesting that "the antislavery movement had provoked the revolt in the first place ." According to historian Tim Matthewson, John Taylor's comments in the debate shows how white attitudes shifted in the south from one of reluctantly accepting slavery as a necessity, to one of seeing it as a fundamental aspect of southern culture and the slave - owning planter class . As the years progressed Haïti only became a bigger target for scorn amongst the pro-slavery factions in the south . It was taken as proof that "violence was an inherent part of the character of blacks" due to the slaughtering of French whites, and the authoritarian rule that followed the end of the revolution - while this logical fallacy required ignoring the violent and authoritarian rule of white people over enslaved Africans, as well as its psychological effects on those Africans . </P>

What were the immediate matters that concerned the nascent united states