Mississippi Territory.
The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the report of the select committee in favor of admitting the Mississippi Territory into the Union on an equal footing with the original States.
A desultory debate of two or three hours took place on the resolution.
Messrs. Poindexter, Johnson, Gholson, McKim, Sheffey, Holland, and Wright, spoke in favor of the resolution, and Messrs. Bacon, Pitkin, Quincy, Bigelow, and Blaisdell, against it. The arguments in favor of its passage were, among others, that the territory could, when possessing a population of 60,000, claim admission as a right; that it now contained probably 45,000, and would, more than probably, before a Representative could be elected under the new constitution, contain full 60,000 souls; that, after admitting Orleans to the rank of a State, with a minor population, at the present session, it would be the height of injustice to refuse the same privilege to Mississippi, which had been so much longer a part of the united territory, and against the admission of which into the Union none of the constitutional objections had weight which had been urged against the admission of Orleans. The opponents of the resolution argued that some respect was due to the feelings, however grounded, of the eastern States, in relation to the creation of new States on the western waters; that the admission of one State during a session was sufficient; if two were admitted into the Union, in the course of three months, the people of the eastern States would be justly alarmed at the diminution of their relative weight in the scale of the Union; that, since it was acknowledged the new State could not be represented before the thirteenth Congress, there could be no occasion for pressing this subject so urgently at this time. Why not, it was asked, wait for the actual census of the territory? The very solicitude which was manifested to get this subject through Congress, it was said, showed there was something wrong, and was a strong argument against the adoption of the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to in Committee of the Whole—ayes 62.
The committee rose, and reported their agreement to the resolution.
The question was then taken to concur with the Committee of the Whole in their agreement to the said resolution, and resolved in the affirmative—yeas 68, nays 47.
Friday, February 1.
Commercial Intercourse.
The House went into Committee of the Whole on the following bill reported by the Committee of Foreign Relations: