It's Confederate History Month in Dixie

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Pre-Revolution, several states/colonies tried to ban the importation of slaves, the British Privy Council overruled them. Post-Revolution, all states except Georgia banned importation by 1786, Georgia (which didn't allow slavery from 1735-1750) banned it in 1798.

And watch them either starve in the wilderness or turn to crime to survive? And watch the newly birthed nation dissolve in economic ruin?

Not that it was remotely likely to happen, but break up the plantations and divide the land up among the slaves. It would hardly have ruined the United States (especially counting the vast expenses of ending slavery as it did four score and seven years later).