| The general effects of the decisions reached in the Missouri question. |
In the first place, the decision involved the constitutional and political principle that, in the federal system of government generally, and in the system of the United States in particular, the powers of government are, and must be, distributed by the sovereignty behind, and supreme over, both the general Government and the Commonwealths, and not by either of the two governments, unless expressly empowered to do so, in specific cases, by the sovereignty through the Constitution. This is undoubtedly a sound principle, both of political science and constitutional law, but it taught the Southerners that protection of their property in slaves would depend upon strict construction of the Constitution. It caused their leaders to desert the broad national ground in the interpretation of the Constitution which they had occupied since 1812, and to seek more and more to limit and restrict the powers of Congress, in which the majority of the members of one House, at least, must always come from the North, and in the other House of which no more than an exact balance could be maintained.
It introduced, therefore, the principle which led necessarily to a division of the all-comprehending Republican party into two branches, the one branch holding to the latitudinarian and national views of the party from 1812 to 1819, and the other to the earlier creed of 1798 to 1812. The former finally coalesced with the remnants of the Federal party and formed the National Republican or Whig party, while the latter called itself the Democratic party.
It is necessary to keep clearly in mind the cause of the division of the Republican party into its two branches in order to understand the principles which distinguished them, for their names are somewhat misleading. For example, it is quite difficult to understand, upon general principles, why the slaveholders of the South should be called Democrats, while many of the little farmers and the artisans of the North should be called Whigs. The element of democracy which was to be found in the political creed of the Southern masters was strict construction of governmental powers, the least possible interference of government in private affairs, and the largest possible individual autonomy—in a word, individual immunity against government. The master could take care of himself, if left free to rule his slaves.
In the second place, the Missouri decision involved the principle of constitutional law that the Congress has general powers of legislation in the Territories, and may do anything therein not forbidden by the Constitution. This is also a sound and valuable principle. It was this which won the great Northwest for free labor, so far as government could affect the question, and gave the Union the strength to meet the crisis of 1861-65. The Southerners eventually saw what they had lost in conceding this interpretation of the powers of Congress, and, as will be seen further on, sought to repudiate it; but their long acquiescence in it had allowed it to gain the power of constitutional precedent, too strong to be successfully overcome.
In the third place, the Missouri decision involved the principle that there was, before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, an United States citizenship which carried with it immunities and privileges which no Commonwealth could lawfully deny or abridge, and which the United States Government was bound to protect and defend against any Commonwealth seeking to impair them. It demonstrated the difficulties which could arise by allowing a Commonwealth to confer United States citizenship, and thereby bind the United States Government to sustain the acts of one Commonwealth within the jurisdiction of another Commonwealth, whose laws might be directly contradictory to those of the first Commonwealth upon the subject in point. It did not undertake to solve the difficulty. It only held firmly to the principle, while it made many of the best minds aware that this most national provision of the Constitution would, sooner or later, certainly require an advance all along the line in the further development of the governmental system of the country.
In the fourth place, the Missouri decision taught the inhabitants of the older Commonwealths that the West could not be held in a provincial or quasi-provincial status; that it must be carved up and formed into Commonwealths having the same powers and privileges as the older Commonwealths; and that, therefore, the political centre of the United States was bound to move westward, and the East was ultimately to come, in large degree, under the influence of the West. It was this which has helped powerfully to carry the brain and the money of the East to the West, and is making in the West a new, and, in some respects, more enterprising, East.
Finally, the Missouri decision taught the South that there was a provision in the Constitution of the United States which probably made it possible for the Northern Commonwealths to force, through the power of the general Government, a class of persons upon the Southern Commonwealths, in the enjoyment of the full rights of citizenship, whom these Commonwealths did not and would not recognize as citizens in any respect; and that there was a growing disposition at the North to make an advance against slavery at every possible point. The effect of this conviction was most baleful both upon the spirit of the masters and the status of the slaves. It created that resentment in the minds of the Southerners against interference in their domestic affairs, which closed their ears to all arguments against slavery, and it moved them to the enactment of measures in their several Commonwealths for the purpose of keeping the slaves under stricter discipline and in denser ignorance. It increased vastly, if it did not introduce, that utter misunderstanding of each other's feelings and motives between the people of the two sections, which made it possible for the people of the North to believe, finally, that the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the sober truth, and the general rule of conduct of master toward slave in the South, and for the people of the South to believe that jealousy of riches and comfort was the sole spirit which prompted the attacks of the North upon slavery—a misunderstanding, therefore, which proved irreconcilable so long as the subject of it remained.