by merchants and planters in South Carolina, and seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight by citizens of Rhode Island.1

From this it appears to some extent how the free States above named treated free Negroes and Mulattoes at the time that they were pressing for the recognition of their citizenship in Missouri as a condition precedent to her admission into the Union. It will be hereafter shown that this condition of the legislation of the Northern states as to free Negroes was not abnormal and confined to that particular period; but was continued with increasing severity until the very moment they determined to inflict Negro equality and Negro citizenship on the Southern States of the Union.

But, to go forward with the progress of the bill for the admission of Missouri, the House on December 13th defeated the resolution to admit Missouri: ayes, seventy-nine; nays, ninety-three.2

The Senate passed a resolution for that purpose, and on July 15, 1821, it was referred to a committee in the House. The resolution as it passed the Senate is as follows: "Resolved, that the State of Missouri shall be, and is, hereby declared one of the United States of America, and is admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever; provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to give the assent of Congress to any provision in the Constitution of Missouri (if any such there be) which contravenes that clause of the Constitution which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States."

Various efforts were unsuccessfully made to amend the resolution so as to make it agreeable to the House. Mr. Clay moved for a committee of thirteen to consider the matter, and the motion was agreed to.

The committee consisted of seven from the free States and six from the slave states, Mr. Clay being chairman. This was on February 2, 1821. On the 10th Mr. Clay made a written report and recommended an amendment of the Senate Resolution so as to make it declare that Missouri 'Annals, 16th Congress, 2d Session, p. 51 et seq.

* Ibid., p. 670.

shall be "admitted into this Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatsoever, upon the fundamental condition that the said State shall never pass any law preventing any description of persons from coming to and settling in the said State who now are, or hereafter may become, citizens of any of the States of this Union; And provided also, That the Legislature of the said State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of the said State to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United States, on or before the fourth Monday of November next, an authentic copy of the said Act; upon the receipt whereof, the President, by proclamation, shall announce the fact; whereupon and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress, the admission of the said State into this Union shall be considered as complete; And provided further, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to take from the said State of Missouri, when admitted into this Union, the exercise of any right or power which can now be constitutionally exercised by any of the original States." 1

The resolution was carefully guarded so as not to give the sanction of Congress to the clause in the Constitution of Missouri to which objection had been made. It declared that said clause should not be construed to exclude from the State any citizen of any other State; but the last proviso secured to the new State all the powers of any of the old States. This resolution the opponents of admission would not agree to, for in view of what has been stated concerning the legislation of New England and other States with reference to free Negroes, it would have resulted that that legislation was unconstitutional, and therefore null, or that the clause in the Constitution of Missouri, to which the opponents of admission objected, would be held valid, and the opponents of admission were not willing to accept such a result.

After a long debate the resolution amended as above set out was rejected: ayes, sixty-four; nays, seventy-three.2 'Annals, 16th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1079.

2 Ibid., p. 1102,

CHAPTER V

REPUDIATION OF COMPROMISE ON 36° 30′

MR. MALLORY, of Vermont, then renewed his former motion to amend so as to require Missouri to frame a Constitution prohibiting slavery. The motion,-notwithstanding the alleged compromise of the last session, by which Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state and slavery to be excluded north of 36° 30',-secured two-thirds of all the votes of the non-slaveholding states,-the ayes being sixty-one, all from the North; the nays, one hundred and seven. Of the latter, only thirty-three were from the North, making nearly two to one from the North who directly repudiated the alleged compromise embraced in the prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30'.

The resolution was then agreed to in committee of the whole, the ayes being eighty-six and nays eighty-three. But so strong was the opposition to the admission when the vote came to be taken in the House that there were only eighty ayes to eighty-three nays.1 A motion to reconsider was carried by a vote of one hundred and one to sixty-six, but on another vote taken February 2, 1821, the resolution was again defeated: ayes, eighty-two; nays, eighty-eight. Of the eighty-two ayes, one was from Pennsylvania, two from New Jersey, one from Rhode Island, one from Connecticut, seven from New York, and two from Massachusetts. Of the two from Massachusetts, one was from a district in Maine which had been recently admitted into the Union, and the other failed to be re-elected to the next Congress.

This seemed to end the matter; but Mr. Clay again came to the rescue. On February 22 the House, on his motion, agreed, by a vote of one hundred and one to fifty-five, to raise a committee of twenty-three to whom the question of admission was to be referred. Two days thereafter the com'Annals, 16th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 1115-16.

mittee reported the following resolution: "Resolved, That Missouri shall be admitted into this Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever, upon the fundamental condition that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the Constitution submitted on the part of said State to Congress shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, by which any citizen of either of the States in this Union shall be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled under the Constitution of the United States, with a proviso that the Legislature shall, by solemn public act, declare their assent to said fundamental condition, and transmit this act to the President by the fourth Monday in November, and thereupon the admission of the State shall be complete." 1

The committee in this report divested the resolution of the second proviso contained in the first report, which secured, notwithstanding the first proviso, the same power to Missouri as belonged to the original States.

Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts, doubtless apprehending that the citizenship of the Negro could not be sustained under the Constitution of the United States, or perhaps being willing to interpose all possible obstacles to the admission of Missouri, moved to amend by striking out the word "citizen" wherever it occurred, and to insert "free Negroes and Mulattoes." A vote on this was prevented by a call of the previous question, which was sustained by one hundred and nine ayes, and there were fifty nays. On the final passage of the resolution there were eighty-six ayes to eighty-two nays,four majority. Of this majority there were two from Pennsylvania, four from New Jersey, six from New York, one from Rhode Island, one from Connecticut, two from Massachusetts, one being from the part admitted as the new state of Maine,—in all sixteen representatives. All the rest from the Northern states, notwithstanding the alleged compromise of the preceding session, voted against the admission of Missouri.

In order to illustrate the foregoing statements, and at the same time to fortify the position that the slavery agita'Annals, 16th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1228.

tion mainly owed its origin, its continuance, and its violence to the contest involved in it for political power, I shall add the following facts:

The Legislature of New Jersey protested against the admission of Missouri as a slave State. The first resolution as presented to Congress is as follows: "Resolved, That the further admission of Territories into the Union without the restriction of slavery would, in their opinion, essentially impair the right of this and other existing States to equal representation in Congress (a right at the foundation of the political compact), inasmuch as such newly admitted slaveholding States would be represented on the basis of their slave population; a concession made at the formation of the Constitution in favor of the then existing States, but never stipulated for new States, nor to be inferred from any article or clause in that instrument." 1

In the fifth resolution they asserted that Congress should exercise the power of excluding "in order to preserve the political rights of the existing states."

A memorial was presented from the citizens of Hartford, Connecticut, against the admission of Missouri. It breathed the same spirit on the subject of slave representation as did the celebrated convention held at that place seven years before. The memorialists disavowed all feelings of an ignoble jealousy that weighs all political questions in the petty scale of mere State interests, and measures every proceeding of the national Legislature by the narrow and contracted standard of advantages to the Northern and Southern, the Eastern and Western sections of our common country; they state that the principle of equality of men was waived in its application to "those States whose policy led them to make it a condition of their adoption of the Federal Constitution that they should retain the privilege of holding slaves, and that these slaves should go to increase the mass of their population which should be entitled to a voice in our National Councils." They aver that this was done in a spirit of compromise, and does not apply to new States. They urge that "the permission of slavery in the new States will be an unwarrantable departure from the principles of that compromise, which it is confessed led to the formation of that part of the Constitu'Annals, 16th Congress, 1st Session, p. 235.