But there is yet another material distinction to be observed. The States, owners of what was called the Northwestern Territory, were component members of the Congress which adopted the Ordinance for its government, and gave thereto their full and free consent. The Ordinance may, therefore, be regarded as virtually a treaty between the States which ceded and those which received that extensive domain. In the other case, Missouri and the whole region affected by the Missouri Compromise, were parts of the territory acquired from France under the name of Louisiana; and, as it requires two parties to make or amend a treaty, France and the Government of the United States should have coöperated in any amendment of the treaty by which Louisiana had been acquired, and which guaranteed to the inhabitants of the ceded territory "all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States," and "the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion they profess."—("State Papers," vol. ii, "Foreign Relations," p. 507.)
For all the reasons thus stated, it seems to me conclusive that the action of the Congress of the Confederation in 1787 could not constitute a precedent to justify the action of the Congress of the United States in 1820, and that the prohibitory clause of the Missouri Compromise was without constitutional authority, in violation of the rights of a part of the joint owners of the territory, and in disregard of the obligations of the treaty with France.
The basis of sectional controversy was the question of the balance of political power. In its earlier manifestations this was undisguised. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, and the subsequent admission of a portion of that Territory into the Union as a State, afforded one of the earliest occasions for the manifestation of sectional jealousy, and gave rise to the first threats, or warnings (which proceeded from New England), of a dissolution of the Union. Yet, although negro slavery existed in Louisiana, no pretext was made of that as an objection to the acquisition. The ground of opposition is frankly stated in a letter of that period from one Massachusetts statesman to another—"that the influence of our part of the Union must be diminished by the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity."[6]
Some years afterward (in 1819-'20) occurred the memorable contest with regard to the admission into the Union of Missouri, the second State carved out of the Louisiana Territory. The controversy arose out of a proposition to attach to the admission of the new State a proviso prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude therein. The vehement discussion that ensued was continued into the first session of a different Congress from that in which it originated, and agitated the whole country during the interval between the two. It was the first question that ever seriously threatened the stability of the Union, and the first in which the sentiment of opposition to slavery in the abstract was introduced as an adjunct of sectional controversy. It was clearly shown in debate that such considerations were altogether irrelevant; that the number of existing slaves would not be affected by their removal from the older States to Missouri; and, moreover, that the proposed restriction would be contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the Constitution.[7] Notwithstanding all this, the restriction was adopted, by a vote almost strictly sectional, in the House of Representatives. It failed in the Senate through the firm resistance of the Southern, aided by a few patriotic and conservative Northern, members of that body. The admission of the new State, without any restriction, was finally accomplished by the addition to the bill of a section for ever prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the Louisiana Territory lying north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, north latitude, except Missouri—by implication leaving the portion south of that line open to settlement either with or without slaves.
This provision, as an offset to the admission of the new State without restriction, constituted the celebrated Missouri Compromise. It was reluctantly accepted by a small majority of the Southern members. Nearly half of them voted against it, under the conviction that it was unauthorized by the Constitution, and that Missouri was entitled to determine the question for herself, as a matter of right, not of bargain or concession. Among those who thus thought and voted were some of the wisest statesmen and purest patriots of that period.[8]
This brief retrospect may have sufficed to show that the question of the right or wrong of the institution of slavery was in no wise involved in the earlier sectional controversies. Nor was it otherwise in those of a later period, in which it was the lot of the author of these memoirs to bear a part. They were essentially struggles for sectional equality or ascendancy—for the maintenance or the destruction of that balance of power or equipoise between North and South, which was early recognized as a cardinal principle in our Federal system. It does not follow that both parties to this contest were wholly right or wholly wrong in their claims. The determination of the question of right or wrong must be left to the candid inquirer after examination of the evidence. The object of these preliminary investigations has been to clear the subject of the obscurity produced by irrelevant issues and the glamour of ethical illusions.
Footnote 1:[ (return) ]
It will be remembered that, during her colonial condition, Virginia made strenuous efforts to prevent the importation of Africans, and was overruled by the Crown; also, that Georgia, under Oglethorpe, did prohibit the introduction of African slaves until 1752, when the proprietors surrendered the charter, and the colony became a part of the royal government, and enjoyed the same privileges as the other colonies.
Footnote 2:[ (return) ]
South Carolina subsequently (in 1803) repealed her law forbidding the importation of slaves. The reason assigned for this action was the impossibility of enforcing the law without the aid of the Federal Government, to which entire control of the revenues, revenue police, and naval forces of the country had been surrendered by the States. "The geographical situation of our country," said Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, in the House of Representatives on February 14, 1804, "is not unknown. With navigable rivers running into the heart of it, it was impossible, with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren ... engaged in this trade, from introducing them [the negroes] into the country. The law was completely evaded.... Under these circumstances, sir, it appears to me to have been the duty of the Legislature to repeal the law, and remove from the eyes of the people the spectacle of its authority being daily violated."
The effect of the repeal was to permit the importation of negroes into South Carolina during the interval from 1803 to 1808. It in probable that an extensive contraband trade was carried on by the New England slavers with other ports, on account of the lack of means to enforce the laws of the Southern States forbidding it.
Footnote 3:[ (return) ]
One from the Society of Friends assembled at Philadelphia and New York, the other from the Pennsylvania society of various religious denominations combined for the abolition of slavery.
For report of the debate, see Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, pp. 201-207, et seq.
Footnote 4:[ (return) ]
See Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, p. 397.