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.