A History of the Republican Party

by George Washington Platt

CHAPTER V.

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.