The amount of indentured servitude dropped dramatically throughout the country. An Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves sailed through Congress with little opposition. President Thomas Jefferson supported it, and it went into effect on January 1, 1808.
On January 8, 1808, Fulton married Harriet Livingston (1786–1824), the daughter of Walter Livingston and niece of Robert Livingston, prominent men in the Hudson River area, whose family dated to the colonial era. Harriet, who was nineteen years his junior, was well educated and was an accomplished amateur painter and musician. Together, they had four children.
Throughout the winter of 1808, French agents became increasingly involved in Spanish internal affairs, attempting to incite discord between members of the Spanish royal family. On 16 February 1808, secret French machinations finally materialized when Napoleon announced that he would intervene to mediate between the rival political factions in the country.
The U.S. Constitution barred the federal government from prohibiting the importation of slaves for twenty years. Various states passed bans on the international slave trade during that period; by 1808, the only state still allowing the importation of African slaves was South Carolina.
Sultan Selim III (reigned 1789–1807) had recognized the need to reform and modernize the Ottoman military, along European lines, to ensure that his state could compete. Selim III, however, faced stiff local opposition from an entrenched clergy and military apparatus, especially from the Janissaries. Consequently, Selim III was deposed and ultimately killed in 1808.
Before going to Iberia, Napoleon decided to address several lingering issues with the Russians. At the Congress of Erfurt in October 1808, Napoleon hoped to keep Russia on his side during the upcoming struggle in Spain and during any potential conflict against Austria. The two sides reached an agreement, the Erfurt Convention, that called upon Britain to cease its war against France, that recognized the Russian conquest of Finland from Sweden, and that affirmed Russian support for France in a possible war against Austria "to the best of its ability".
Shamshi-Adad I (1808–1776 BC) was already the ruler of Terqa, and although he claimed Assyrian ancestry as a descendant of Ushpia, he is regarded as a foreign Amorite usurper by later Assyrian tradition. However, he greatly expanded the Old Assyrian Empire, incorporating the northern half of Mesopotamia, swathes of eastern and southern Anatolia, and much of the Levant into his large empire, and campaigned as far west as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.