The Missouri Compromise: Union and Clay

The last part of this argument was repelled with great decision by the majority of Southern members. They affirmed that when it was proposed to allow the importation of slaves from Africa, or from any foreign country, the South would be first and most earnest in protesting against it. But by compliance with the wish expressed by the South the slave population of the Union "would not be increased by a single soul." Over and over again it was affirmed, with Jefferson in his old age, "All know that permitting the slaves of the South to spread into the West . . will increase the happiness of those existing, and, by spreading them over a larger surface, will dilute the evil everywhere and facilitate the means of getting rid of it, an event more anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than by the noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity."

This false reasoning, however, was readily overthrown, it being undeniable that increased subsistence would increase population, while the higher prices arising from a widened market would be a strong impulse towards an increase in the supply of slaves. The question of State rights was next brought in as an element of the debate, it being claimed that the Constitution was but an "international compact," which could exercise no other powers than those originally granted it by the sovereign States, and could impose no conditions on new States not directly specified in that instrument.

It was indeed said that the slavery limitation did not really withdraw a "fundamental right," but rather did away with a "fundamental wrong." But the Constitution had left to the original States the right of tacitly letting the fundamental wrong stand as a "right" or of making it one. If several States made no use of this prerogative, and if the facts of every day showed it to be more than a destructive fiction that slavery was a "purely municipal institution," yet this did not change the positive right. Slavery eat into the life-marrow of the whole Union; therefore not only considerations of morality, but the highest self-interest of the Union demanded the absolute prohibition of its further extension. But morality and self-interest could not do away with the fact that the whole Constitution rested upon the foundation of the equality of the members of the Union, and that the original members had full freedom of action in regard to this particular question.

The unconquerable obstacle can be expressed in a single sentence: the fact could not be done away with that the Union was composed of free and slave States, that is, the fact could not be done away with that the attempt had been made to construct out of heterogeneous elements not only a harmonious but a homogeneous whole.

Arguments could not bring the question any nearer to a solution. After the differences of principle between the two parties had been clearly established, the debates served only to excite passion. The slave-holders sought more than ever to make a bridge of threats upon which they could cross to their goal. It is said that Randolph proposed to Clay to abandon the House to the Northern members, and that Clay actually gave the project serious consideration.

Missouri herself took an extremely arrogant position. When Taylor moved, December 16, 1819, to defer the consideration of the bill till the first Monday in February, 1820, Scott, the delegate of the Territory, objected that Missouri would, in this case, go on and organize a State government without waiting any longer for leave from Congress. And this threat of the Territorial delegate against the whole Union was not punished as a piece of laughable insolence. Reid of Georgia declared that Missouri would "indignantly throw off the yoke" and "laugh Congress to scorn." Tyler of Virginia, the future President, asked what would be done if "Missouri sever (herself) from the Union?" And Jefferson, the ex-President, expressed the fear that Missouri would be "lost by revolt."

During the whole struggle the decision had depended only upon a few votes, for a number of Northern representatives had voted, from the beginning, with the South. That it was, nevertheless, so long before the South obtained, by threats and worse means, the necessary number of votes, is a plain proof that an independent and honorable spirit was then much more common among Northern politicians than later. The restriction was finally stricken out by a majority of only three votes.