ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.
This was the exciting and agitating question of the session of
1820-'21. The question of restriction, that is, of prescribing the
abolition of slavery within her limits, had been "compromised" the
session before, by agreeing to admit the State without restriction,
and abolishing it in all the remainder of the province of Louisiana,
north and west of the State of Missouri, and north of the parallel
of 36 degrees, 30 minutes. This "compromise" was the work of the
South, sustained by the united voice of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, the
united voices of the Southern senators, and a majority of the
Southern representatives. The unanimity of the cabinet has been
shown, impliedly, by a letter of Mr. Monroe, and positively by
the Diary of Mr. John Quincy Adams. The unanimity of the slave
States in the Senate, where the measure originated, is shown by its
journal, not on the motion to insert the section constituting the
compromise (for on that motion the yeas and nays were not taken),
but on the motion to strike it out, when they were taken, and
showed 30 votes for the compromise, and 15 against it--every one of
the latter from non-slaveholding States--the former comprehending
every slave State vote present, and a few from the North. As the
constitutionality of this compromise, and its binding force, have,
in these latter times, begun to be disputed, it is well to give
the list of the senators names voting for it, that it may be seen
that they were men of judgment and weight, able to know what the
constitution was, and not apt to violate it. They were Governor
Barbour and Governor Pleasants, of Virginia; Mr. James Brown and
Governor Henry Johnson, of Louisiana; Governor Edwards and Judge
Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois; Mr. Elliott and Mr. Walker, of
Georgia; Mr. Gaillard, President, _pro tempore_, of the Senate and
Judge William Smith, from South Carolina; Messrs. Horsey and Van
Dyke, of Delaware; Colonel Richard M. Johnson and Judge Logan, from
Kentucky; Mr. William R. King, since Vice-President of the United
States, and Judge John W. Walker, from Alabama; Messrs. Leake and
Thomas H. Williams, of Mississippi; Governor Edward Lloyd, and the
great jurist and orator, William Pinkney, from Maryland; Mr. Macon
and Governor Stokes, from North Carolina; Messrs. Walter Lowrie and
Jonathan Roberts, from Pennsylvania; Mr. Noble and Judge Taylor,
from Indiana; Mr. Palmer, from Vermont; Mr. Parrott, from New
Hampshire. This was the vote of the Senate for the compromise. In
the House, there was some division among Southern members; but the
whole vote in favor of it was 134, to 42 in the negative--the latter
comprising some Northern members, as the former did a majority
of the Southern--among them one whose opinion had a weight never
exceeded by that of any other American statesman, William Lowndes,
of South Carolina. This array of names shows the Missouri compromise
to have been a Southern measure, and the event put the seal upon
that character by showing it to be acceptable to the South. But
it had not allayed the Northern feeling against an increase of
slave States, then openly avowed to be a question of political
power between the two sections of the Union. The State of Missouri
made her constitution, sanctioning slavery, and forbidding the
legislature to interfere with it. This prohibition, not usual in
State constitutions, was the effect of the Missouri controversy
and of foreign interference, and was adopted for the sake of
peace--for the sake of internal tranquillity--and to prevent the
agitation of the slave question, which could only be accomplished
by excluding it wholly from the forum of elections and legislation.
I was myself the instigator of that prohibition, and the cause
of its being put into the constitution--though not a member of
the convention--being equally opposed to slavery agitation and to
slavery extension. There was also a clause in it, authorizing the
legislature to prohibit the emigration of free people of color
into the State; and this clause was laid hold of in Congress to
resist the admission of the State. It was treated as a breach of
that clause in the federal constitution, which guarantees equal
privileges in all the States to the citizens of every State, of
which privileges the right of emigration was one; and free people
of color being admitted to citizenship in some of the States,
this prohibition of emigration was held to be a violation of that
privilege in their persons. But the real point of objection was the
slavery clause, and the existence of slavery in the State, which
it sanctioned, and seemed to perpetuate. The constitution of the
State, and her application for admission, was presented by her
late delegate and representative elect, Mr. John Scott; and on his
motion, was referred to a select committee. Mr. Lowndes, of South
Carolina, Mr. John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, and General Samuel
Smith, of Maryland, were appointed the committee; and the majority
being from slave States, a resolution was quickly reported in favor
of the admission of the State. But the majority of the House being
the other way, the resolution was rejected, 79 to 83--and by a clear
slavery and anti-slavery vote, the exceptions being but three, and
they on the side of admission, and contrary to the sentiment of
their own State. They were Mr. Henry Shaw, of Massachusetts, and
General Bloomfield and Mr. Bernard Smith, of New-Jersey. In the
Senate, the application of the State shared a similar fate. The
constitution was referred to a committee of three, Messrs. Judge
William Smith, of South Carolina, Mr. James Burrill, of Rhode
Island, and Mr. Macon, of North Carolina, a majority of whom being
from slave States, a resolution of admission was reported, and
passed the Senate--Messrs. Chandler and Holmes, of Maine, voting
with the friends of admission; but was rejected in the House of
Representatives. A second resolution to the same effect passed the
Senate, and was again rejected in the House. A motion was then made
in the House by Mr. Clay to raise a committee to act jointly with
any committee which might be appointed by the Senate, "to consider
and report to the Senate and the House respectively, whether it be
expedient or not, to make provision for the admission of Missouri
into the Union on the same footing as the original States, and
for the due execution of the laws of the United States within
Missouri? and if not, whether any other, and what provision adapted
to her actual condition ought to be made by law." This motion
was adopted by a majority of nearly two to one--101 to 55--which
shows a large vote in its favor from the non-slaveholding States.
Twenty-three, being a number equal to the number of the States, were
then appointed on the part of the House, and were: Messrs. Clay,
Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia; Mark Langdon Hill, of Massachusetts;
Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia; Henry R. Storrs, of New-York; John
Cocke, of Tennessee; Christopher Rankin, of Mississippi; William
S. Archer, of Virginia; William Brown, of Kentucky; Samuel Eddy,
from Rhode Island; William D. Ford, of New-York; William Culbreth,
Aaron Hackley, of New-York; Samuel Moore, of Pennsylvania; James
Stevens, of Connecticut; Thomas J. Rogers, from Pennsylvania; Henry
Southard, of New-Jersey; John Randolph; James S. Smith, of North
Carolina; William Darlington, of Pennsylvania; Nathaniel Pitcher, of
New-York; John Sloan, of Ohio, and Henry Baldwin, of Pennsylvania.
The Senate by a vote almost unanimous--29 to 7--agreed to the joint
committee proposed by the House of Representatives; and Messrs. John
Holmes, of Maine; James Barbour, of Virginia; Jonathan Roberts,
of Pennsylvania; David L. Morril, of New-Hampshire; Samuel L.
Southard, of New-Jersey; Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky;
and Rufus King, of New-York, to be a committee on its part. The
joint committee acted, and soon reported a resolution in favor of
the admission of the State, upon the condition that her legislature
should first declare that the clause in her constitution relative
to the free colored emigration into the State, should never be
construed to authorize the passage of any act by which any citizen
of either of the States of the Union should be excluded from the
enjoyment of any privilege to which he may be entitled under
the constitution of the United States; and the President of the
United States being furnished with a copy of said act, should, by
proclamation, declare the State to be admitted. This resolution was
passed in the House by a close vote--86 to 82--several members from
non-slaveholding States voting for it. In the Senate it was passed
by two to one--28 to 14; and the required declaration having been
soon made by the General Assembly of Missouri, and communicated to
the President, his proclamation was issued accordingly, and the
State admitted. And thus ended the "Missouri controversy," or that
form of the slavery question which undertook to restrict a State
from the privilege of having slaves if she chose. The question
itself, under other forms, has survived, and still survives, but not
under the formidable aspect which it wore during that controversy,
when it divided Congress geographically, and upon the slave line.
The real struggle was political, and for the balance of power, as
frankly declared by Mr. Rufus King, who disdained dissimulation; and
in that struggle the non-slaveholding States, though defeated in the
State of Missouri, were successful in producing the "compromise,"
conceived and passed as a Southern measure. The resistance made to
the admission of the State on account of the clause in relation
to free people of color, was only a mask to the real cause of
opposition, and has since shown to be so by the facility with
which many States, then voting in a body against the admission
of Missouri on that account, now exclude the whole class of the
free colored emigrant population from their borders, and without
question, by statute, or by constitutional amendment. For a while
this formidable Missouri question threatened the total overthrow
of all political parties upon principle, and the substitution of
geographical parties discriminated by the slave line, and of course
destroying the just and proper action of the federal government, and
leading eventually to a separation of the States. It was a federal
movement, accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first was
overwhelming, sweeping all the Northern democracy into its current,
and giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect was
perceived the Northern democracy became alarmed, and only wanted a
turn or abatement in the popular feeling at home, to take the first
opportunity to get rid of the question by admitting the State, and
re-establishing party lines upon the basis of political principle.
This was the decided feeling when I arrived at Washington, and many
of the old Northern democracy took early opportunities to declare
themselves to me to that effect, and showed that they were ready
to vote the admission of the State in any form which would answer
the purpose, and save themselves from going so far as to lose their
own States, and give the ascendant to their political adversaries.
In the Senate, Messrs. Lowrie and Roberts, from Pennsylvania;
Messrs. Morril and Parrott, from New-Hampshire; Messrs. Chandler and
Holmes, from Maine; Mr. William Hunter, from Rhode Island; and Mr.
Southard, from New-Jersey, were of that class; and I cannot refrain
from classing with them Messrs. Horsey and Vandyke, from Delaware,
which, though counted as a slave State, yet from its isolated and
salient position, and small number of slaves, seems more justly to
belong to the other side. In the House the vote of nearly two to
one in favor of Mr. Clay's resolution for a joint committee, and
his being allowed to make out his own list of the House committee
(for it was well known that he drew up the list of names himself,
and distributed it through the House to be voted), sufficiently
attest the temper of that body, and showed the determination of the
great majority to have the question settled. Mr. Clay has been often
complimented as the author of the "compromise" of 1820, in spite of
his repeated declaration to the contrary, that measure coming from
the Senate; but he is the undisputed author of the final settlement
of the Missouri controversy in the actual admission of the State.
He had many valuable coadjutors from the North--Baldwin, of
Pennsylvania; Storrs and Meigs, of New-York; Shaw, of Massachusetts:
and he had also some opponents from the South--members refusing to
vote for the "conditional" admission of the State, holding her to
be entitled to absolute admission--among them Mr. Randolph. I have
been minute in stating this controversy, and its settlement, deeming
it advantageous to the public interest that history and posterity
should see it in the proper point of view; and that it was a
political movement for the balance of power, balked by the Northern
democracy, who saw their own overthrow, and the eventual separation
of the States, in the establishment of geographical parties divided
by a slavery and anti-slavery line.