HISTORY OF FORMER

The Convention adjourned January 5th, 1815, and, so doubtful was it of the propriety of its acts, that the resolutions adopted were not made public until two weeks after adjournment. These resolutions were, in brief, as follows:

The first recommended the Legislatures of the States represented to protect the citizens of the several States from the operation of acts passed by Congress, subjecting them to forcible drafts, conscriptions or impressments, not authorized by the

New States to be admitted by a vote of two-thirds of similar conventions held in the seceded of both houses of Congress.

Congress shall have no power to lay an embargo of Hartford, justly indignant at the presence of more than sixty days duration.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE EX

CITEMENT-1819-21.

The

well known" compromise" resolutions, and, by his eloquence and great personal influence, succeeded in securing their passage-thus averting the peril threatened, of a disruption of the Union. The Compromise consisted of admitting Missouri as a Slave State, but conceding, as an equivalent for Northern concession in the premises, the prohibition of any further Slave territory north of the parallel 36 deg. 30 min. The Compromise, though unpalatable to the opponents of the right of Slave extension, was accepted as a solemn guarantee against all further extension, as, south of the parallel named, the territory then was not ours. Had it not been proposed and pledged as such a guarantee, the bill of Mr. Clay never could have passed the House of Representatives.

The Territory of Missouri came forward, in December, 1818, for admission into the Union as a State. As Slavery existed in the territory, the admission as a State involved the principles of a recognition of the "peculiar institution," and its right to extension. Freesoil element of the Northern or Free States becoming alarmed, resolved to oppose the admission of the territory as a State with a Slave clause in its constitution. The South, equally determined, resolved the State should have Slavery if it wanted it, and thereby assumed that position which it has ever since persistently maintained—of a Slave right in the territories. The issue, thus squarely presented, was met in the House of Representatives by a bill (introduced by Mr. Tall-State was admitted. Prior to this the terrimadge, of New York,) prohibiting Slavery, "except for the punishment of crimes, and that all children born in the said State after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years." This passed the House, but was lost in the Senate. For eighteen months the discussion was continued in both branches of Congress with great ability, and not without great excitement which extended to every section of the Union

On the one hand, it was contended that the ordinance of 1787, which excluded Slavery from all territory north-west of the river Ohio, was a public recognition of the principles of the people of the United States in regard to the establishment of Slavery in new States and Territories in that region, and that the proposal to establish it in Missouri was a direct violation of these fundamental principles. On the other hand, it was urged that Slavery was incorporated in the system of society when Louisiana, which comprehended the territory of Missouri in 1803, was purchased from the French, and that as the faith of the United States was pledged by treaty to all the inhabitants of that wide domain to maintain their rights and privileges on the same footing with the people of the rest of the country, it would be a violation of that faith and those rights to abolish the institution of Slavery without their consent.

It was not until August, 1821, that the

non

tory had adopted a State Constitution, one provision of which required the Legislature to pass a law "to prevent free negroes from coming to and settling in the State." When presented to Congress, this provision was strenuously opposed, but Missouri was finally admitted, on condition that no law should be passed by which any citizen of either of the States of the Union should 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. The vote upon the passage of the bill in the House was 86 to 82, several members from -Slaveholding States voting for it. In the Senate it was passed two to one-28 to 14. Missouri thus became one of the United States, measureably to increase the power of the Slave States in the government. State by State had been added to the original thirteen—Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, all with Slavery in their borders, and bearing to Congress the preponderating weight of their votes. The admission of Missouri, and the later admission of Arkansas and Florida, confirmed the supremacy of the South in the National counsels; a supremacy which was not disturbed until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854 called into life the party which, in 1860, succeeded to the majority.*

Mr. Everett states:-"Out of seventy-two years Henry Clay then came forward with his since the organization of this government, the Execu

HISTORY OF FORMER

THE INDIAN DIFFICULTIES IN
GEORGIA, 1825.

The immense tracts of lands held in Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi by the Creeks, Choctaws, Chicksaw and Cherokee Indians, proved, for awhile, the source of much anxiety to government. The "reservations" guaranteed by solemn treaty to the Indians, in the various Southern and Western States, embraced immense bodies of choice land, up to a comparatively recent period. Thus, the treaties secured to the savages, and promised protection from all infringements by the whites on their domains, territories as follows:-In Georgia, nine and a half millions of acres; in Alabama, seven and a half millions; in Mississippi, fifteen and three-quarter millions; in the Territory of Florida, four millions; in the Territory of Arkansas, fifteen and a half millions; in the State of Missouri, two millions and three-quarters; in Indiana and Illinois, fifteen millions, and in Michigan,

east of the lake, seven millions.

head waters of the Arkansas river. Georgia made her demand peremptorily, since she held the Federal Government bound by a compact to relieve her. This compact stipulated that, in consideration of Georgia relinquishing her title and claim to the Mississippi Territory, the General Government would extinguish the Indian titles to the lands within her confines, "whenever it could be peaceably done and on reasonable terms." After making that agreement the Government succeeded in extinguishing the title to about fifteen million acres, and conveyed the same to the State of Georgia. There still remained 9,537,000 acres in the possession of the Indians, of which 5,292,000 acres belonged to

the Cherokees and the remainder to the Creek nation. Shortly before the termination of Mr. Monroe's administration, the State Government became very urgent for the entire of the Governor two Commissioners were apremoval of the Indians, and at the solicitation pointed to make a treaty with the Creeks for

the purchase of their lands. This was a treathe famous Chief, General William McIntosh, ty negotiated on the 12th of February, 1825, signing it in the presence of Mr. Crowell, the United States Indian Agent, by which all the Creek country and several millions of acres in Alabama were ceded to the United States. Complaints followed it to Washington as hav

The "march of civilization" soon compassed these reservations with white settlements, and, as a matter of course, trouble followed Encroachments would be made by the whites, covetous of the land or of its game. Indians would murder the whites and give the State authorities and General Government plenty to do to keep them in bounds. So great being been concluded by McIntosh without the came the anxiety, in the Southern States authority of the nation. The ratification of named, to get rid of the aborigines, that their the treaty was opposed, but was finally carState Legislatures demanded of Government ried by the strong vote of thirty-four to four. the entire removal of the red-men from their This sanction, on reaching the ears of the discontented Creeks, produced great excitement, and a secret council of the nation being called, they resolved not to accept the treaty. The death of McIntosh was determined on, and on the 30th of April his house was surround

midst to the unsettled Territories around the

tive Chair has, for sixty-four years, been filled nearly all the time by Southern Presidents; or when not by Southern men, by those possessing the confidence of the South. For a still longer period the controlling in-ed by a party, who shot him and another fluences of the Legislative and Judicial Departments of the government have centered in the same quarter. Of all the offices in the gift of the central power, in every department, far more than her proportionate share has always been enjoyed by the South." It is well to remember so important a fact. Judge Holt,

64

chief, and burned his premises. This aroused the State authorities to a determined course, and Georgia resolved to take possession of the lands by force. Troops were called out to sustain the claim. By this act the State opened a controversy with the General Gov

of Kentucky, used these facts, in his speech made at 'Camp Holt," late in July, 1860, with most damag-ernment, which was bound to protect the Ining force against those who made the plea that the dians in their just rights.

South had been denied her rights and just share in the Government.

When Mr. Adams came into power he made

the subject an early matter of examination,

and became convinced that the Indians were right that the treaty, as they represented, had been made by McIntosh without authority, and therefore that the enforcement of its provision ought not to be urged. As Georgia had called out troops to force the savages into an acceptance and fulfillment of the treaty, it only remained for the President to order a Federal force to the confines of the reservation to protect the Indians in their rights. This step aroused not only Georgia, but also the adjoining States, who were prepared, with troops and money, to assist Georgia "against the Government and the Indians."

The passage of the Tariff Act of 1828 was the immediate cause of the excitement known as the "Nullification" rebellion. That act heavily taxed woolens and other imported products-thus greatly enhancing their price to the South, and restricting importations. The complaint was one well calculated to excite a bitter feeling in the Cotton States, since it took the shape of a "Northern exaction"-a "tribute to Northern capital and labor"--an "unequal assessment of burdens," &c. Mr. Hayne, U. S. Senator from South Carolina, in January, 1830, arraigned the act as unconstitutional, and asserted the right and duty of the State to nullify the law by To avoid this hazard of war, Mr. Adams refusing to pay the required duties. This succeeded in gathering at Washington, in speech called forth from Webster his great January, 1826, the head men and responsible oration on the powers of the Constitution. representatives of the Creeks, and concluded | In it he so thoroughly killed the assumed a new treaty, which was substituted for the right of nullification, that, for the moment, old one, whereby all the lands in Georgia the friends of resistance to the law were inwere ceded, but none in Alabama. Notwith-timidated, if not convinced. standing the oposition of the Georgia delegation in Congress, the new treaty was ratified by the Senate at the ensuing session by a vote of thirty to seven, and the appropriations were made by the House of Representatives by a vote of one hundred and sixty-seven to ten. This treaty was faithfully observed by the Indians, and Georgia became possessed of their valuable land, after waiting a quarter of a century for Government to fulfil its agreement (made in 1802). At a late day the Cherokees' title was extinguished in Alabama, though their removal to the West was not accomplished until Gen. Scott took the matter in hand (in May, 1838).

The excitement, however, soon received a new impetus, from a most trivial but not less significant source. The matter is thus stated: On the 15th of April, 1830, the anniversary of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson was celebrated by a numerous company at Washington city, among whom were the President and Vice-President of the United States, several members of his Cabinet, and a numerous attendance of the members of Congress. With the promulgation of the toasts the feeling began to spread that the dinner was got up to inaugurate the doctrine of nullification, and make Mr. Jefferson its father. Numbers left the table, but the company was still numerous and the festivity a success. When the regular toasts were over, the President

selves. The time has gone by for us as partisans to

THE SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICA- make special pleas to explain away or qualify acts TION CONSPIRACY, 1832-3.

This Conspiracy raised the direct issue, invented by Mr. Jefferson in his Resolutions of '98, of the right of a State to nullify the acts of Congress and to be its own judge of the constitutionality of a law.*

It is denied that Mr. Jefferson is the originator of the idea; but, as we have before remarked, the evidence to the contrary is the resolutions them

and expressions of great leaders. Let plain words be interpreted in the plain way. There has been so much "pettifogging" in regard to the clear, Saxon expressions of the Constitution, so much good sense wasted in constructing equivocalities for party plat forms, so much legal doubt created by Supreme Court decisions on property in men, that we should be permitted to regard them all as consigned to the past, and to read the records by the new and direct light of a present disenthralment of mind from old passions and prejudices.

HISTORY OF FORMER CONSPIRACIES.