erneur Morris expressed it, by "bargain between the Northern and Southern Southern States." These compromises were founded on the concession on all sides that slavery was a State institution, subject to the will of each State to establish or abolish as it should deem best in its own judgment, and embraced the three points of controversy: five slaves as three freemen in representation and taxation, the delivery of fugitives from slavery, and what has been stated about the African slave trade.

Very early after the inauguration of the Government under the Constitution it was found that there was discontent as to these provisions, and also a disposition on the part of some of the States to evade, if not directly to disregard, these compromises, especially as to the representation of slaves.

CHAPTER II

ACQUISITION OF LOUISIANA

As has been stated, the controversies on the subject of slavery were always connected with other questions. The main question was sectional political power. It will be observed that this came up on all occasions when a measure was before the public, upon the decision of which there might be an augmentation of power in one section of the Union, and relative diminution of power in another. And it will be interesting, as well as instructive, to note how the question of the relative powers of the State and Federal Governments was always decided in each section in accordance with its views in opposition to or approval of a measure that might detract from or add to its own power.

When the treaty for the acquisition of Louisiana came before the House of Representatives for the appropriations necessary to pay for that Territory this fact was made manifest.

That appropriation was opposed by a majority of the representatives from Massachusetts, all from Connecticut, and a majority from New Hampshire; though one of the best speeches made in favor of it was by Mr. Elliott, of Vermont. Mr. Thatcher, of Massachusetts, in opposing the appropriation, said that "The Confederation under which we now live is a partnership of States, and it is not competent to it to admit a new partner but with the consent of all the partners.'

"1

Mr. Griswold said: "Such a power [to admit new States from territory acquired since the formation of the Constitution] would be directly repugnant to the original compact between the States, and a violation of the principle on which that compact was formed. It has been already

well observed that the union of the States was formed on the 'Annals, 1st Session, 8th Congress, p. 454.

principle of a copartnership, and it would be absurd to suppose that the agents of the parties who have been appointed to execute the business of the compact, in behalf of the principals, could admit a new partner, without the consent of the parties themselves." This is the very essence of the Resolutions of 1798 and 1799.

It was not denied that the United States could acquire new territory by conquest or purchase, but the opposition was to that provision of the treaty which provided for the eventual admission of Louisiana into the Union.2

But this ground of opposition, based on expediency, was clearly on the change it would effect in the distribution of political power. Mr. Thatcher objected that if the treaty went into effect it would carry from its present center a great portion of the population of the United States, that it would probably remove the seat of Government, and that it might dismember the Union.

Mr. Griswold argued that "The Government having been formed by a union of States, it is supposable that the fear of an undue or preponderating influence in certain parts of the Union must have great weight in the minds of those who might apprehend that such an influence might ultimately injure the interests of the States to which they belonged; and although they might consent to become parties to the Union, as it was then formed, it is highly probable they never would have consented to such a connection, if a new world was to be thrown into the scale, to weigh down the influence which they might otherwise possess in the National Councils." 3

This, it will be remembered, was on the bill to appropriate money to carry out the plighted faith of the Government to pay for Louisiana.

In 1811 the question as to the admission of Louisiana into the Union was before Congress. Admission was opposed by the great preponderance of members from New England.

Mr. Josiah Quincy, one of the ablest men in the country, was the leader in the contest. Louisiana was slave territory, and was to be admitted as a slave state. He argued that the 1 Annals, Ist Session, 8th Congress, p. 461.

2 Ibid., p. 463.

3 Ibid., p. 462.

influence of the slave votes upon the political power of the eastern portion of the country "and the anticipated transmission of power to the west were subjects of great jealousy to some of the best patriots in the Northern and Eastern States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution," and that these patriots, if they had foreseen that the population beyond the Mississippi was to be brought into Congress "to frame our laws, control our rights, and decide our destiny, would not for one moment have listened to it."

"They were not madmen," he declared. "They had not taken degrees at the hospital of idiocy. They knew the nature of man and the effect of his combinations in political societies. They knew that when the weight of particular sections of a confederacy were greatly unequal the resulting power would be abused; and that it was not in the nature of man to exercise it with moderation."

He pressed with great force the effect of the admission of Louisiana on the relative political power of the other States, declaring "that the proportion of political power subject only to the internal modifications permitted by the Constitution is an inalienable, essential, intangible right," and "that when it is touched the fabric is annihilated," and that "on the preservation of these proportions depend our rights and liberties."

He spoke of the constitution as a political compact, averring that the proportion of the political power of each sovereign State constituting the Union depends upon the number of States "which have a voice under the compact." Like Mr. Griswold and Mr. Thatcher in 1803, he spoke of the States as "partners," and denounced the wrong of admitting new partners contrary to the terms of the contract, stating it was wholly inconsistent with the "intent of the contract and the safety of the States which established the association." He stated interrogatively, "Is there a moral principle of public law better settled, or more conformable to the plainest dictates of reason than that the violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered as exempting the other from its obligations?"

And again he said: "I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion that, if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligations, and that, as it

will be the right of all, so will it be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation-amicably, if they can, violently if they must." 1

On the passage of the bill to admit Louisiana, not a member from New Hampshire nor Rhode Island nor Connecticut voted for it, and only one out of four from Vermont and five out of fourteen from Massachusetts voted for it.

So at this early day we see that there was opposition to the three-fifths slave representation in the House of Representatives, as provided for in the Constitution. The jealousy of sectional interests and power and the determination to maintain this power even at the cost of a dissolution of the Union were also made manifest. These manifestations then came from the Northern States. Hereafter it will be seen that similar sentiments came from the South.

These proceedings took place on the eve of the war with Great Britain. Before that war was over there was another manifestation of sectional jealousy, to which attention is now invited.

1

Annals, 3d Session, 11th Congress, pp. 524 et seq.