Slavery Detrimental to the State power to change the political relations of its free citizens by transferring their country to a foreign power, it could not provide for the gradual abolition of slavery within its limits nor establish civil regulations naturally flowing from a self-evident truth. If slavery be excluded from the new State, argued a Virginia member, the price of the public lands would fall. Not so; the reverse would follow, replied a member from New York. Compare the price of land in Pennsylvania and Maryland, along the line dividing free from slave soil. On the Pennsylvania side, where slavery was forbidden, land uniformly sold at a higher price than that of the same quality on the Maryland side. Slavery would diminish the value of the public lands in Missouri, just as it had diminished the value of land wherever it was allowed. Why had not the people of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois changed their State constitutions and introduced slavery? Because they had learned by experience the value of the Ordinance of 1787. Public sentiment there sustained the principle of the Ordinance far more effectually than any constitutional prohibition could do. Is it not the duty of Congress, inquired a Massachusetts member, to ascertain, before admitting a new State, that its constitution, or form of government, is republican? This was secured by the restriction. The existence of slavery in any State is, so far, a departure from republican principles. It violated the Declaration of Independence and the principle on which our national and State constitutions are professedly founded. Since it could not be denied that slaves are men, it followed that, in a purely republican government, they are born free, and are entitled to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No sooner was this said than members were on their feet calling the speaker to order for using improper language. He had no right, in debate, to question the republican character of the slave-holding States; such language tended to deprive them of the right to hold slaves as property; moreover, it was not improbable that there were slaves in the gallery listening to the debate. But the member quickly assured the House that nothing was further from his thoughts than to question the right of Virginia and other States which held slaves when the Constitution was established to continue to hold them. With that subject the national Legislature could not interfere, and ought not to attempt interference. Would it be a republican form of government if Missouri submitted a constitution by which no person could vote or be elected to office unless he possessed a clear annual income of twenty thousand dollars? As few had such an income, the government would be an aristocracy in fact, though a republic in form. But if all other inhabitants, save those favored by wealth, were to be made the slaves of this oligarchy-and consequently mere property-would not the republican principle be outraged? The exclusion of the black population from all political freedom and the making them the property of the whites were an equally The Constitution Does not Apply to New States palpable invasion of right and abandonment of principle. If permitted in a new State, Congress would violate the Constitution; the excuse existing in 1787 no longer remained. Then concessions were necessary and proper. The States in which slavery existed claimed the right to continue it, nor could they be asked to make a general emancipation of their slaves. It would have endangered their political existence. The Constitution was a compact among the original States, and contained certain exceptions in their favor-such as the obligation on Congress not to prohibit the African slave-trade till 1808; also the provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves. These exceptions did not apply to new States. To attempt to extend slavery over them would be a direct violation of the clause which guarantees a republican form of government to the States. Clay had argued that the proposed restriction would violate the provision that citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States. But can slavery be called a privilege? inquired a member. Surely what was gained by the master was lost by the slave. Slavery was the exception to the general principles of the Constitution. Clay had asked, Where would conditions end if Congress could impose them on a new State? Congress, was the reply, is obliged to require a republican form of government-which was enough to decide the question at issue; but it had the right, at its discretion, to impose any reasonable condition. The conditions imposed on Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, and Mississippi were not more indispensable ingredients in a republican form of government than the restriction now proposed for Missouri-the equality of privileges for all its population. But, it was said, the restriction would abridge the rights of citizens of the slave-holding States to transport their slaves to the new State, for sale or otherwise - thus violating the principle, clearly laid down in the Constitution, of the equal rights of citizens of the several States. Did not the Constitution itself answer this objection? The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States existing in 1787 might admit should not be prohibited by Congress till 1808. Clearly this implied that after that year migration or importation might be prohibited. Importation had been probibited, but not migration. Could not Congress restrain it whenever it might be judged expedient? Migration did not mean importation nor exportation. Nor could it mean the reception of free blacks from a foreign country, as some alleged, for there was no possible reason for regu lating their admission by the Constitution. Moreover, none ever came. There remained but one meaning for migration-the transportation of slaves from slave - holding States to other States. Hitherto it had not been necessary for Congress to prohibit migration or transportation from State to State; now it was its right and duty to prevent the further extension of the intolerable evil of slavery. To these arguments for the amendment there was A Blow for Emancipation but one reply, repeated now by one member, now by another: If the citizens of Pennsylvania or Virginia enjoyed the right of deciding whether or not they should have slavery, why should not the citizens of Missouri have the same privilege? Discrimination of this kind by Congress among the States would destroy the Union. Let the advocates of restriction beware! On them would rest the fearful responsibility if civil war should come. They were exciting servile insurrection; they were attacking the vested rights of property. Let them not imagine that the people of the slaveholding States did not know their rights and would not protect them. But the mind of the House was made up, and on the 16th both sections of the amendment passed the first, prohibiting the further introduction of slavery, by a majority of eleven;* the second, for gradual emancipation, by a majority of four.† A Delaware member voted with the majority on the first section, and ten members— from Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Illinois-with the minority. Both sections were carried, however, by a sectional vote. On the next day, Taylor, of New York, moved the Tallmadge amendment to the bill providing a Territorial government for Arkansas-a subdivision of the Missouri Territory. The question differed from the one of the day before. That Eighty-seven to seventy-six. |