of a section, or eighty acres; the President was authorized to borrow three millions of dollars, to supply the probable deficit in the treasury; attempts were made to pass a bill providing for a uniform system of bankruptcy, strongly favored in the East and opposed in the South, but this failed; and during this session an act was passed and signed by the President, providing for a continuation of the survey of a route for the Cumberland Road, from Wheeling, Virginia, through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to strike the Mississippi, between the mouth of the Illinois and St. Louis, and ten thousand dollars were appropriated for the purpose. This act was in keeping with the growing sentiment of the country, and committed the Democratic party to the Federal principle of internal improvements, although Mr. Monroe believed that, strictly speaking, the Constitution, unamended, gave no authority for this step.

Congress adjourned on the 15th of May, 1820, with the Spanish treaty still undisposed of, although General Vives, the new Minister, had arrived six days previously, and Mr. Adams was again attempting remove the difficulties in the way to final success

to

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FIRST GREAT STRUGGLE BETWEEN SLAVERY AND FREE

DOM-THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

OTHING in the internal political history of this

NOT

Government had yet produced such profound and wide-spread commotion as the contest over the admission of Missouri as a State. Hitherto, in the Halls of Congress, the subject of African slavery had been handled with caution and moderation, little arising there to expose to the country its inflammable and dangerous nature, or to reveal the already ineradicable hold it had taken on the feelings and principles of the people.

In the winter of 1818, a bill was introduced in Congress, proposing the admission of the Territory of Missouri as a State. Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, offered an amendment providing that the children of all slaves born in the State should be free on reaching the age of twenty-five, and that slaves should not be further introduced into the State. This amendment to the bill was agreed to by a majority of six votes, but the Senate not concurring, the bill was lost. This was substantially the state of the case at the close of the session. A little cloud was left in the clear sky. Who could tell what it would be in the future? And although the famous Missouri Compromise terminated a stormy contest of two years' duration, the first chapter

of the history only had been made. The sequel, beginning in 1850 and 1854, closed in the grand tragedy of the war of the Rebellion.

In the session of the winter of 1819 the people of Maine, then part of Massachusetts, applied to Congress to be admitted as a State, and a bill for this purpose met no great opposition in the House, but in the Senate James Barbour, of Virginia, on the 3d of February, 1820, moved to amend this bill by attachThis ing to it one for the admission of Missouri. amendment was sustained by a vote of 23 to 21, on the 16th of February, the two Senators, Van Dyke and Horsey, from Delaware, voting no, and three from the North, Taylor, of Indiana, and Edwards and Thomas, of Illinois, voting in the affirmative. To the Missouri part of the joint bill, Mr. Thomas then proposed an amendment prohibiting slavery from all part of the Louisiana purchase not included in Missouri and lying north of 36° 30', north latitude. On the very next day this proposition was adopted by against 10 votes, and on the final reading Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, and Smith, South Carolina, voted in the affirmative.

that

34

even of

But the House, on the 23d of February, disagreed to the action of the Senate, disapproving the Thomas compromise amendment by a vote of 159 to 18, after having rejected the amendment attaching the Missouri bill to the Maine bill by a vote of 93 to 72.

Five

days later the Senate declined to recede, and reaffirmed its former action, that attaching Missouri by a vote of 23 to 21, and the slavery line amendment by 33 against 11. But this did not relieve the complica tion, as the House reaffirmed its own action on both points,

on the same day, with a slightly increased majority. This dead-lock in the proceeding, led to the appointment of a committee of conference, composed of three members from the Senate and five from the House.

The House had also taken a course of its own on the subject. Late in January, John W. Taylor, of New York, proposed an amendment to the House Missouri bill, prohibiting slavery in the State, but not interfering with the slaves already in the Territory, nor with their reclamation when fugitives, and on the 1st of March the amended bill was passed by a vote of 91 to 82. But when this bill was sent to the Senate that body struck out Mr. Taylor's restrictive clause, and substituted its own compromise measure. In the meantime the committee of conference of the two Houses made a report to the effect that the Maine and Missouri bills should be separated, that the restriction on the State as to slavery should be left out, and that the proposed slave line of 36° 30′ should be adopted. The House then voted on striking the abolition restriction from its bill, and this was carried. by a majority of three votes, with eight absentees and two vacancies. The Senate clause as to the compromise line was then adopted in the House, in a vote of 134 to 42.

The two State bills now being separated Maine was at once admitted without further delay. But although the way was now apparently clear for Missouri, she did not present her constitution until the next winter, and then it had an objectionable clause which was, perhaps, well known to be contrary to the constitution of the United States. This Constitution was, however, referred to a committee in each House,

also

and resolutions were offered for the admission of the State at once, Mr. Lowndes, of the House committee, stating that the objectionable clause "preventing free negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in the State" was held as repugnant to the Federal Constitution which provides that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." He stated that it was deemed best to admit the State, and leave this matter to the courts when a case should arise. In the Senate John H. Eaton, holding the clause in question to be unconstitutional obtained a postponement for further consideration, and early in December offered a resolution declaring that nothing in the souri constitution should be so construed as to flict with the clause in the Federal Constitution which fixed the rights of citizens of other States. resolution was at first rejected, even Rufus King vot But on the 11th of December it ing against it. again proposed by Mr. Eaton, and was adopted by a vote of 26 to 18, all the negative votes, except being from the free States. In the House Mr. Low ndes resolution for admission without restriction on

Mis

con

This

was

the

proposed

objectionable clause, was discussed, and rejected by fourteen votes. A number of amendments proj were also rejected, and so the matter stood at beginning of February, 1821.

the

On the 2d of that month, Henry Clay, determined to effect a settlement of the difficult question in some way, moved that the Senate resolution be referred to a committee of thirteen. The committee was appoi appointed, and eight days afterwards, Mr. Clay as its chairman reported an amendment admitting Missouri on condi