CLAY'S COMMITTEE. 373 favor of it and Lowndes, Randolph, Barbour and most of the members from the slave States, declared against it. So conflicting and various were the opinions that the House could agree on nothing, and it failed to adopt either the Senate resolution or one of its own. Now it was that Clay came forward with another compromise. The Senate resolution should be referred to a Special Committee of Thirteen, but should be amended so that Missouri should be admitted upon condition that its legislature would never pass a law preventing any description of persons from going into the State and settling there, who were or who might become citizens of any State in the Union. The Missouri legislature should be given until the fourth of November to comply with the condition. If, by that time, it had conformed it should communicate its solemn public act to the President, who should then proclaim the compliance, and Missouri should be admitted without further action of Congress. On the twelfth the House took up the report of Clay's committee, but the momentum of opposition was so strong that at first both Clay's amendment and the Senate resolution were rejected, but on the following day its action was reconsidered and the debate was resumed. At this time General Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, who had been a member of the convention that framed the Constitution, was a member of the House. He declared in a speech of some historical interest, that he was the author of the clause of the Constitution relating to the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States, and that at the time he drew it, he knew perfectly that there was no such thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, and that notwithstanding all that had been said on the subject, he did not believe that such a person existed in 1821. He then attempted to show that free persons of color had 372 STATUS OF FREE NEGROES. als on the public lands from the Missouri legislature, which had been presented to the House on the preceding day. The vote on Cobb's motion was a tie, the effect of which was rather anomalous; if the House refused to recognize Missouri as a State, it must be a territory. But straightway, by a vote of one hundred and fifty to four, the House refused to designate Missouri on the journal as a territory and here the matter stood for awhile. In the Senate meanwhile, the committee to whom the Missouri constitution had been referred had reported a resolution1 declaring the State admitted. But the Benton provision became a subject of contention here as in the House. Eaton of Tennessee sought to avoid difficulty by offering a resolution, which, while recognizing the act of admission, declared that this act should not be construed as giving the assent of Congress to any provision in the Missouri constitution which might be contrary to the Constitution of the United States. But his resolution was rejected for the time. Every Senator knew that throughout the Union at this time there was an accepted discrimination against the African whether bound or free. Morrill, of New Hampshire, proved from the records of his own State and those of Vermont and Massachusetts, that free men of color had long been accustomed to exercise the privileges and enjoy the immunities of citizens, evidence which he thought was sufficient to warrant a rejection of the Missouri constitution. Eaton's amendment was then reconsidered and carried as being nothing more than a declaration of the attitude of Congress to the whole question. On the twenty-ninth of January,2 the House took up the Senate resolution admitting Missouri. Clay spoke in 1 November 29, 1820. 2 1821. CLAY'S COMMITTEE. 373 favor of it and Lowndes, Randolph, Barbour and most of the members from the slave States, declared against it. So conflicting and various were the opinions that the House could agree on nothing, and it failed to adopt either the Senate resolution or one of its own. Now it was that Clay came forward with another compromise. The Senate resolution should be referred to a Special Committee of Thirteen, but should be amended so that Missouri should be admitted upon condition that its legislature would never pass a law preventing any description of persons from going into the State and settling there, who were or who might become citizens of any State in the Union. The Missouri legislature should be given until the fourth of November to comply with the condition. If, by that time, it had conformed it should communicate its solemn public act to the President, who should then proclaim the compliance, and Missouri should be admitted without further action of Congress. On the twelfth the House took up the report of Clay's committee, but the momentum of opposition was so strong that at first both Clay's amendment and the Senate resolution were rejected, but on the following day its action was reconsidered and the debate was resumed. At this time General Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, who had been a member of the convention that framed the Constitution, was a member of the House. He declared in a speech of some historical interest, that he was the author of the clause of the Constitution relating to the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States, and that at the time he drew it, he knew perfectly that there was no such thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, and that notwithstanding all that had been said on the subject, he did not believe that such a person existed in 1821. He then attempted to show that free persons of color had 374 ELECTORAL VOTE OF MISSOURI. never been citizens of the United States or possessed the rights of white men, and that they were incapable of exercising them. Though there is no evidence that General Pinckney was the author of the clause in question,1 and though his argument against the citizenship of free persons of color whether in 1789 or in 1821 has any historical basis, yet his statements carried great weight in the House, for he seemed to speak as one having authority. The time for counting the electoral vote was now at hand, and it was feared that there might be tumult in case the friends of Missouri insisted that its vote should be counted. When the day arrived and the vote of Missouri was announced, the two Houses being assembled as usual in the Representative Chamber, Livermore, a New Hampshire member, amidst confusion, objected to counting the vote of Missouri, because it was not yet a State; this precipitated a tumult. The Senate withdrew amidst confusion and the House fell to wrangling over the matter. Floyd, of Virginia, submitted a resolution that the vote should be counted. This revived the whole question and was likely to lead to no immediate settlement of it. Clay succeeded in carrying through a pacific motion to lay Floyd's resolution on the table and proceed with the count. Happily this was agreed to and word was sent to the Senate that the House was prepared to receive it for the purpose of counting the vote. The matter was finally settled by a joint resolution, that if the vote of Missouri was counted the result would be two hundred and thirty-one votes for Monroe for President and two hundred and eighteen for Tompkins for Vice-President; if it was not counted it would receive three less. Thus happily in either case 1 See Madison's testimony on this point, Elliot, V, 578. 2 February 14, 1821. CLAY AS A COMPROMISER. 375 Monroe and Tompkins had a majority and peace was preserved. The most important immediate effect of this treatment of Missouri was that it was not yet a State. The restrictionists were immovable in their hostility to the Benton clause in the Missouri constitution, but it was soon known that their opponents were willing to join in a further compromise. One was speedily initiated by Henry Clay, who, on the second of February, made the first move toward the final settlement of the question, by asking for the appointment of a Grand Joint Committee of Conference. Both Houses concurred, the representatives elected twentythree members and the Senate seven. Clay was made chairman of the House committee and Holmes, one of the Senators from Maine, was made chairman of the committee of the Senate.1 Six days later this Grand Committee delivered its report, which agreed in substance with that lately made by the committee of thirteen. A short and rather sharp debate followed in the House, but the report was carried by four votes.2 In the Senate it was carried by a vote of twenty-eight to fourteen. On the second of March the committee's report put in the form of a statute became the law. The Missouri legislature was to repudiate the Benton provision, which it did in August, and President Monroe was then to proclaim Missouri a State in the Union. This he did on the tenth of the month.3 The constitutional question at the root of the Missouri Compromise was whether the government of the United States could impose restrictions on a territory or a State, and particularly whether it could restrict slavery. The 1 Annals, 1219. 2 Eighty-six to 82. |