after some modifications the clause is inserted without much opposition.

In 1789 South Carolina, who had continued to hold her land grants in the West, which covered the territory of the present State of Tennessee, ceded them to the United States on the condition among others "that no regulation made or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate slaves." The western territory held by Georgia, comprising the States of Alabama and Mississippi, was ceded to the Union in 1802, upon about the same condition. There was no alternative but to accept these cessions with their conditions. If the States held the lands, they would plant slavery there themselves, and thus increase their own greatness; and the United States could not secure the territory without the conditions.

Thus has slavery in the infant days of our Republic, by menaces and strategy triumphed over Congress and the will of the majority of our people.

The framers of our Constitution thought that they had laid a legislative coil which would sometime restrict the growth of slavery when they limited slave importation to twenty years; and they were no sanguinary visionists, but based their judgement upon the teachings of history. "In all former ages," says Greeley in his "American Conflict:" "slavery so long as it existed and flourished, was kept alive by a constant or frequent enslavement of captives, or by importation of bondmen. Whenever that enslavement, that importation, closed, slavery began to decline." But American slavery has set at naught the teachings of history and baffled the calculations of statesmen. The acquisition of Louisiana, thus opening a vast territory for the introduction of slaves, and the invention of the Cotton Gin, thus increasing the value of slave labor, rendered the commerce in human flesh as profitable as in the days of the African West India Company. Rapacious avarice unable longer to satisfy its greediness for gain by importation, invents a new system for multiplying human chattels. "Slave-breeding for gain, deliberately pro

posed and systematically pursued, appears to be among the late devices and illustrations of human depravity. Neither Cowper nor Wesley, nor Jonathan Edwards, nor Granville Sharp, nor Clarkson, nor any of the philanthropists or divines, who, in the last century, bore fearless and emphatic testimony to the iniquity of slave-making, slave-holding and slave-selling seemed to have had any clear conception of it. For the infant slave of the past ages was rather an encumbrance and a burden, than a valuable addition to his master's stock. To raise him, however roughly, would cost all he would ultimately be worth. That it was cheaper to buy slaves than to rear them, was quite generally regarded as self-evident. But the suppression of the African slavetrade, coinciding with the rapid settlement of the Louisiana purchase, and the triumph of the Cotton-Gin, wrought here an entire transformation. When a field hand brought from ten to fifteen hundred dollars, and young negroes were held at about ten dollars per pound, the new born infant, if healthy, well formed, and likely to live, was deemed an addition to his master's wealth of not less than one hundred. dollars even in Virginia or Maryland. It had now become the interest of the master to increase the number of births in his slave cabin; and few evinced scruples whereby this result was obtained. The chastity of female slaves was never deemed of much account, even where they were white; and, now that it had become an impediment to the increase of their master's wealth, it was wholly disregarded. No slave girl, however young, was valued lower for having become a mother, without waiting to be first made a wife; nor were many masters likely to rebuke this as a fault, or brand it as a shame. Women were publicly advertised as extraordinary breeders, and commanded a higher price on that account. Wives, sold in separation from their husbands, were imperatively required to accept new partners, in order that the fruitfulness of the plantation might not suffer."

CHAPTER IV.

TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY IN 1820.

As it has been before shown, when the Territory of Orleans was admitted into the Union, under the name of Louisiana, the remaining portion of the Louisiana purchase, heretofore called the Territory of Louisiana, passed to the second grade of government, under the title of Missouri Territory. The population spreading back from each side of the Missouri River, and extending about two hundred miles west of the Mississippi, in 1815 petitioned Congress for the privilege of forming a State government and an admission into the Union on the same footing as the original States. This petition, after having been presented twice in the House of Representatives and ordered to lie on the table, was a third time presented' by Mr. Scott, delegate from that territory, and referred to a select committee of which the above named gentleman was made chairman. On the 3d of April Mr. Scott reported a bill in compliance with the petitioners' request which was referred to a Committee of the Whole, but was never acted upon. At the next session of Congress the Speaker, Mr. Clay, presented a petition from the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Missouri, praying that they might be permitted to form a constitution and frame a State government, and be admitted into the Union. The House in Committee of the Whole entered into discussion upon a bill relating to this subject, and after consid

ering various amendments, one was proposed by Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, in these words:

"And provided, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and that all children born within said State, after the admission thereof, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years."

This amendment elicited a spirited discussion, but passed the House by a very close vote. The bill on going to the Senate was amended by striking out the restriction clause, and concurred in'; but the House adhering to its amendment, it was lost.

The same Congress organized the Territory of Arkansas from the southern part of Missouri, agreeable to a petition from the inhabitants thereof. Attempts were made to apply the slavery restriction to it, but failed, and it was accordingly organized without any reference to slavery.

A glance at the map will reveal the magnitude of this question which affected the two contending parties. It was not merely whether Missouri should be a slave or a free State; but whether the vast expanse of territory extending westward from Missouri across the broad prairies, over the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific-comprising about one-fourth the area of the United States-should be consecrated to Slave, or Free, labor. This is the way the question was viewed at that time; it was thought that the fate of Missouri would decide that of the territory west and south of it, which then belonged to, or would be acquired afterwards by, the United States.

During the following summer, the interim between the two Congresses, the subject of slavery restriction was agitated all over the country. Public meetings were held and speeches made; conventions were called and resolutions passed in accordance with their sentiments; the whole country was can

(3) February 13, 1819,

(4) February 26,

(5) March 2

vassed by public speakers and flooded with pamphleteers; the press opened its battery and kept up a continual fire; thus the country was agitated until it was fairly ablaze with excite

ment.

The North opposed the permanent establishment of slavery, from moral and political considerations. It claimed to be actuated by the spirit of the founders of the Republic, who sought by all legislative means to prevent the growth of slavery. It was plain, however, that whatever party obtained Missouri, obtained the balance of power, and there is no doubt that the North sought to obtain it on this account, as well as from other considerations. But such is the construction which mankind put upon the motives of an action, that where there may be an unworthy one, no matter how many good ones, they generally attribute it to the former. The South put, therefore, the very worst interpretation upon the actions of the North, as aiming at political supremacy by an unjust and oppressive legislation.

The position of the anti-restrictionists was a very singular one, if not inconsistent. They bewailed in most eloquent lamentations over the wrongs which slavery inflicted upon the slaves, country and people; conceded the right and duty of Congress to prohibit it from the territories, and to provide, in every constitutional way, for its removal; but now that they had the power to prevent its extension, and, consequently, its growth, they refused to exercise it. But they fought the battle under the banner of State Rights, State Sovereignty, Liberty, and the Right of the people to frame their own institutions, as opposed to Usurpation and Oppression on the part of Congress.

Fresh from the heat of popular discussion, with feelings all aglow with excitement, the members of the XVIth Congress convened. Memorials from the people and Legislature of Missouri bearing evidence of an angry feeling, caused by

(6) December 16, 1819,