66 ulation of each State, with three-fifths of all other persons The Federalist, P. 46, says: "We subscribe to the doctrine, might one of our Southern brethren observe, that rep. resentation relates more immediately to persons and taxation more immediately to property; and we join in the application of this distinction to the case of our slaves. But we deny the fact that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities, being considered by our laws in some respects as persons and in other respects as property. In being compelled to labor, not merely for himself, but for a master-in being vendible by one master to another master, and being subject, at all times, to being restrained in his liberty, and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of his owner, the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with that of the irrational animals, which fall under the legal denomination of property. In being protected on the other hand, in his life and in his limbs, against the violence of all others, even the master of his labor and his liberty, and in being punished himself for all violence committed against others, the slave is no less regarded by the law as a member of society, not as a part of the irrational creation, as a moral person, not a mere object of property. "The Federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety, on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and property. This is, in fact, their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be disputed that these are the proper criterion, because it is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed Africans into subjects of property, that a place is denied to them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, they would no longer be refused an equal share of representation with the other inhabitants." The Constitution of the United States not only contains no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land. CHAPTER IX. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. Forever ours! for good or ill, on us the burden lies; God's balance, watched by Angels, is hung across the skies. Shall Justice, Truth and Freedom turn the poised and trembling scale? Shall the broad land, o'er which our flag in starry splendor waves, THE question of slavery was at first of only incidental interest in the political history of the country. The Convention of 1787, whose work and plans were mainly confined to the fringe of States along the Atlantic coast, had really formed two Nations-a slave-holding Nation and one which only tolerated slavery, into one; but the Union was physical, rather than chemical, and the two sections retained distinct interests, feelings and peculiarities. As both spread beyond the Alleghanies to the West, the broad river Ohio lay in waiting to be the national boundary between the States in which slavery should be legal, and those in which it should be illegal. When the tide of emigration began to pour across the Mississippi, and fill the Louisiana purchase, the dividing line was lost and conflict became inevitable. The Territory of Missouri, formerly the district of Louisiana, was organized by various acts of Congress, 1812-'19. Slavery had been legal by French and Spanish law, before the annexation, had been continued by the laws of the Territories of Louisiana and Missouri, and had not been prohibited by any of the organizing acts of Congress. The Territory was, therefore, in the straight road to become a slave State, as Louisiana had already become. March 16, 1818, a petition from Missouri for permission to form a State Constitution was offered in the House, and April 3, a committee reported an enabling act which slept until the following session. February 13, 1819, the House went into 66 committee of the whole on the enabling act, when Talmadge of New York, offered the amendment to it, and provided, also, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall be duly convicted; and that all children of slaves born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free, but may be held to service until the age of twenty-five years." The Talmadge Proviso was added to the bill by an almost exactly sectional vote, the Northern members voting for it, and the Southern members against it. The bill then passed the House. In the Senate it was amended by striking out the proviso, but the House refused to concur in the amendment, and in the resulting disagreement the bill was lost. At the close of this Congress, March 3, 1819, Missouri was still a Territory. The Talmadge Proviso, in the eyes of most of the Northern politicians who supported it, was merely an attempt to maintain the balance of power between the two sections. Kentucky had been offset by Vermont, Tennessee by Ohio, Louisiana by Indiana, and Mississippi by Illinois. The Territory of Alabama had applied for authorization to form a State government, which, indeed, was granted at this session; and the Talmadge Proviso was a demand that Missouri, as a free State, should now offset Alabama. Accordingly, therefore, the meeting of the next Congress, the Legislatures of Delaware and all the Northern States (except those of New England, whose unpopularity as Federalists would have made their open support of doubtful value, and Illinois, whose early settlers were largely Southern), had warmly approved the Talmadge proviso, and stamped it as emphatically a Northern measure. of the Legislatures, the vote was unanimous, former party lines being entirely dropped. But complicated with this sectional question there were very many other fundamental questions, so that a full discussion of the Missouri case would almost involve a treatise on American constitutional law. In most 1st. Even granting that Congress had the power to govern the Territory of Missouri absolutely, what power was there in Congress to forever prohibit the future State of Missouri from permitting slavery within its own limits, if by its own laws it should see fit to do so? While other States enjoyed the priv ilege of permitting or abolishing slavery at their discretion, was Missouri, while nominally entering the Union on equal terms with other States, to be debarred the right of choice? On the other hand, if Congress had the power to legislate for the Territory, what power could prevent Congress from controlling and laying conditions upon the organization of the Ter ritory into a State? What right had Missouri to object to the absolute prohibition of slavery to which Ohio, Indiana and Illinois had submitted whithout a thought of complaint or objection? 2d. The treaty by which Lousiana, including Missouri, had been acquired stipulated that the ceded territory should be at ence incorporated into the Union, and that its inhabitants should be given all the rights of Citizens of the United States as soon as possible. From this clause it was argued, that any attempt to impose any such limitation upon the admission of Missouri was a breach of good faith, and of treaty obligations. To this it was answered that the contracting powers to the treaty must have been aware that the treaty power could not in any way control the admission of new States, which must be by concurrent action of both branches of Congress and the President. 3d. A broader ground was taken by some Southern members. They held that the compromise which gave the slave States representation for three-fifths of the slave population, had recognized slavery as a fundamental feature of their society; that the control of slavery was therefore one of the powers reserved to the States; and that Congress could not constitutionally assume that power in the case of either a new or an old State. On the other hand, if this was really a compromise by which certain States were to be brought into the Union, why should Missouri now claim as a right that which had been originally granted only to a different and distinctly marked Territory? Was it not enough that the Southern |