Thus rejected, the bill was returned to the Senate shorn of its amendments. After four days of debate in the Senate it was decided not to recede from the attachment of the Missouri subject to the Maine bill; not to recede from the amendment prohibiting slavery west of Missouri, and north of 36° 30´ north latitude, and insisted upon the remaining amendments without division.
When the bill was returned to the House a motion was made to insist upon its disagreement to all but section nine of the Senate amendments, and was carried by a vote of 97 to 76.
The Senate asked for a committee of conference upon differences between the two Houses, which was cheerfully granted by the House. On the 2d of March, Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, as chairman, made the following report:
"1. The Senate should give up the combination of Missouri in the same bill with Maine.
"2. The House should abandon the attempt to restrict Slavery in Missouri.
"3. Both Houses should agree to pass the Senate's separate Missouri bill, with Mr. Thomas's restriction or compromising proviso, excluding Slavery from all territory north and west of Missouri.
"The report having been read,
"The first and most important question was put, viz.:
"Will the House concur with the Senate in so much of the said amendments as proposes to strike from the fourth section of the [Missouri] bill the provision prohibiting Slavery or involuntary servitude in the contemplated State, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes?"
The vote resulted as follows: For giving up restriction on Missouri, yeas, 90; against giving up restriction of slavery in Missouri, 87.
Mr. Taylor, of New York, offered an amendment to include Arkansas Territory under the prohibition of slavery in the territory west and north of Missouri, but his amendment was cut off by a call for the previous question. Then the House concurred in the Senate amendment excluding forever slavery from the territory west and north of Missouri by a vote of 134 to 42! And on the following day the bill admitting Maine into the Union was passed without opposition.
Thus the Northern delegates in Congress were whipped into line, and thus did the South gain her point in the extension of slavery in violation of the sacred compact between the States contained in the ordinance of 1787.
But the struggle was opened afresh when Missouri presented herself for admission on the 16th of November, 1820. The constitution of this new State, adopted by her people on the 19th of July, 1820, contained the following resolutions which greatly angered the Northern members, who so keenly felt the defeat and humiliation they had Suffered so recently:
"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws, first, for the emancipation of Slaves without the consent of their owners, or without paying them, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for such slaves so emancipated; and second: to prevent bona-fide emigrants to this State, or actual settlers therein, from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of their Territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be Slaves, so long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as Slaves by the laws of this State.
... "It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be necessary,
"First, to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in, this State, under any pretext whatever."
Upon the motion to admit the State the vote stood: yeas, 79, nays, 93. Upon a second attempt to admit her, with the understanding that the resolution just quoted should be expunged the vote was worse than before, standing: yeas, 6; nays, 146!