THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
"The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought of
the country ... suddenly and without warning the North and the South,
the free States and the slave States, found themselves arrayed against
each other in violent and absorbing conflict."
_James G. Blaine_.
Shall there be Slave States other than Louisiana west of the Mississippi
River? This question coming suddenly before the people in 1818, laying
bare the inherent antagonisms of the North and South, aroused the entire
country to a white heat of excitement; and only after a most bitter and
alarming struggle resulted in the third great Compromise on the slavery
question.
From the time of Whitney's invention to the Missouri Compromise, three
important events happened in the history of slavery: The first Fugitive
Slave Law passed in January, 1793; the acquisition of the Louisiana
Territory in 1803, and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.
The call for legislation to enforce the Fugitive Slave provision in the
Constitution came, strangely enough, from the North. A free negro had
been kidnapped in Pennsylvania in 1791 and taken to Virginia. The
Governor of Virginia refused to surrender the kidnappers, claiming there
was no law on the subject. Upon the matter being brought to the
attention of Congress by the Governor of Pennsylvania, a Fugitive Slave
Law and also an Extradition Law for fugitives from justice were enacted.
While the fugitive from justice was surrounded by the safeguards of a
requisition accompanied by a certified copy of an indictment or
affidavit charging the crime, these safeguards were not given to the
slave, but he could be forcibly seized by the owner or his agent and
taken before a magistrate. There was no trial by jury, and the only
requisite for conviction was an affidavit that he had escaped. The
harshness of this procedure was resisted from the very first by the
northern people, but this law was on the statute books until the second
and last law on the subject was passed as a part of the Compromise of
1850.
When the time came at which Congress could abolish the slave trade, a
law was promptly passed, after considerable angry debate as to its
terms, prohibiting the slave trade after December 31, 1807. In fact, it
was necessary to even effect a compromise on this subject on the point
as to what should be done with any slaves that might be imported
contrary to the law; and it was decided that they should belong neither
to the importer nor any purchaser, but should be subject to the
regulations of the State in which they might be brought. As far as it
restrained the South, the law abolishing the slave trade proved to be
more of a dead letter than the Fugitive Slave Law did in the North,
because the slave trade was carried on with more or less openness until
the Civil War, it being estimated that about fifteen thousand slaves
were brought into the country annually. The abolition of the slave trade
caused several of the border States to devote their attention to slave
breeding, which, with the increased demand and the large advance in
prices, became a profitable industry in Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.
The acquisition in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory, the wonderful and
romantic exploration of it by Lewis and Clark in 1804-5, the closing of
the Indian Wars and the second war with England, and hard times in the
East, caused that tremendous rush of population to the West, which
resulted in the admission of so many new States prior to 1820, and
opened anew the slavery question. Vermont, admitted in 1791, Kentucky
1792, Tennessee 1796, Ohio 1803, Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816,
Mississippi 1817, Illinois 1818, and Alabama 1819, had raised the number
of States to twenty-two; eleven free and eleven slave; the early custom
of admitting a free and slave State together having been strictly
followed. The admission of these States effectively partitioned all of
the territory east of the Mississippi between Freedom and Slavery, with
the exception of the Michigan Territory (subsequently divided into
Michigan and Wisconsin), and the new Territory of Florida, purchased
from Spain in 1819. West of the Mississippi only one State had been
admitted, and the rest of the land was known as the Missouri Territory.
The tide of population passing down the Ohio, or through the States, had
crossed the Mississippi into the Missouri country, and Missouri, in
1818, petitioned Congress for permission to form a Constitution and
enter the Union. Nothing was said about slavery, but it was known that
the great majority of the Missouri settlers were slave owners or
sympathizers, as those who held anti-slavery opinions were content to
remain in the States formed out of the Northwest Territory, and it was
therefore certain that Missouri would be a slave State.
[Illustration: The Capitol, Washington, D. C.]
The Bill authorizing Missouri to act was taken up in the House on
February 13, 1819, and immediately Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, moved
that the further introduction of slavery in Missouri be prohibited, and
that children born in the State after its admission should be free at
the age of twenty-five years. Instantly and unexpectedly an exciting,
violent debate took place between the North and South. Neither professed
to understand the position of the other, but the North was more
sincerely astonished, because for the first time she realized what the
South had intended for many years, that slavery should be made a
permanent institution in the original States, and that it should be
forced into the Missouri Territory as a matter of political necessity;
because the extension of slave area had by this time become absolutely
necessary for the interests of the South.
It was a plain proposition that if the South lost control of the
legislative reins at Washington, slavery would eventually be doomed by
adverse legislation and by the admission of free States. At the time the
Missouri question came up, the North, by reason of her larger
population, controlled the House, but the Senate was controlled by the
South. The censuses taken in 1800 and 1810 had shown that the North was
increasing two to one in population over the South, and the coming
census, it was feared, would show a much larger increase in favor of the
North; in fact, when the census for 1820 was published the division of
the population was as follows:
Free
White. Negroes. Slaves.
North .......... 5,030,371 99,281 19,108
South .......... 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017
With a great moral weakness to justify, the South now knew herself to be
growing physically weaker, and her skillful leaders, always alert on
every phase of slavery, saw quickly that the South must insist upon more
slave territory, not only to maintain the equilibrium in the Senate, but
to counteract the growing population in the North. Therefore the
Missouri question was pressed with violence, threat and strategy. The
South was determined that Missouri should come in as a slave State or
the South would secede from the Union; the North not only argued that
slavery was a great wrong, not to be encouraged by its extension, but
was equally determined that the South should have no more political
advantage because of her slaves. "This momentous question," wrote
Jefferson, "like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with
terror."
With the two Sections dead-locked, nothing could take place but the most
acrimonious debates, accompanied by threats and defiances. The House
adopted the Tallmadge Amendment, but it was rejected by the Senate.
Neither branch would recede from its position, and amid scenes of the
greatest excitement in Washington and throughout the country, the
Fifteenth Congress adjourned.
The Sixteenth Congress met on December 6, 1819, and the Missouri
question came up immediately. A compromise that the territory west of
the Mississippi should be divided in the same manner as that east of the
river was rejected by the North. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is
some difficulty in deciding which, Maine applied at this time for
admission, and the South in the Senate refused to admit Maine unless the
North would admit Missouri, and out of the situation rose the Missouri
Compromise. By a close majority the Senate joined Maine and Missouri in
the same Bill, and then Senator Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois, moved
that, excepting Missouri, slavery should forever be prohibited in all
the Louisiana Territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude,
this being the southern boundary of Missouri. The Bill was taken to the
House toward the end of January, 1820, but it refused to concur. The
Senate stood fast, and after some further angry debate the House yielded
early in March, 1820; Maine came into the Union, and Missouri was
permitted to draft a Constitution, which, if acceptable, would admit her
to statehood.
But the difficulty was not over, for when Missouri presented her
Constitution it was found to contain a provision that the Legislature
should pass a law preventing free negroes from settling in the State.
The North violently opposed this provision and refused to admit
Missouri, and the situation was even more serious than when the original
subject was considered. The intense excitement spread from Washington
throughout the country, and many felt that the Union would be dissolved.
The debate continued until the middle of February, 1821, without
solution, and Congress was to adjourn early in March. Maine had already
been admitted, and her representatives were in Congress. The South felt
that she had been betrayed. Finally a second compromise on the Missouri
question was reached, through the efforts of Henry Clay, and Missouri
was admitted upon condition that no law should ever be passed by her to
enforce the objectionable provision in her Constitution.
While it was true that the North received in area decidedly the best of
the bargain, the Missouri Compromise was a distinct victory and gain for
the South, because she obtained a present, tangible and important
advantage in the admission of a slave State and the establishment of
slavery in the heart of the Louisiana Territory. The North obtained
nothing but a hazy, speculative advantage, and as the subsequent history
of this Compromise proved, the South intended to keep it only as long as
it served her interests.
On the subject of the sacredness of the various Compromises on slavery,
it is interesting to note that a strong attempt was made to set aside
the Ordinance of 1787. After Ohio had been admitted the rest of the
Northwest Territory was organized under the name of the Indiana
Territory, and as many of the settlers were slavery sympathizers, they
very early (1802), under the lead of William Henry Harrison, asked
Congress to at least temporarily suspend the operation of the Ordinance
of 1787. This was refused, but Governor Harrison and a large number of
the settlers persisted until 1807 in their efforts; fortunately Congress
took no action, and in 1816 Indiana came in as a free State. There was a
struggle to make Illinois a slave State, by amending her Constitution,
which continued until 1824.
The Compromise of 1820 practically settled the slavery question for
twenty-five years, for the question only came up in a serious form when
new territory was acquired and the manner of its division arose. No more
States were admitted until 1836, when Arkansas became a State, to be
balanced by the admission of Michigan in 1837. From 1820 to 1845 the
main issues before the people were those relating to the Tariff,
Re-chartering the Bank of the United States, and Internal improvements.
The greatest political excitement, having an important bearing upon the
feeling between the North and South, was the opposition of the South to
the protective Tariffs of 1824 and 1828, and to the question of Internal
improvements. As a culmination of her opposition, South Carolina passed
a Nullification Ordinance in 1832, based upon the doctrine of State
rights as advocated by John C. Calhoun, but the difficulty was settled
by Clay's Compromise Tariff Bill of 1833. The opprobrium of
nullification and secession, however, does not rest entirely with the
South; the Federal Press of New England and many Federal leaders in
Congress deliberately discussed and planned a Secession Movement in
1803-4 because they thought that the purchase of the Louisiana Territory
was unconstitutional and that it would give the South an advantage which
the North would never overcome. This movement, however, never gained
strength enough to be serious.
One result of the Missouri Compromise, most important in its political
effect, was that it created a solid South, and divided the North into
various opinions as to what should exactly be done to meet the evil. It
was this uncertainty on the part of the North and the lack of
organization on the direct subject of slavery opposition that permitted
the South to hold out so long after she had been greatly outnumbered in
population and left far behind in material progress.