The Middle Period, 1817-1858. John William Burgess
power and duty of Congress to enact the restriction, they claimed the personal liberty of every human being to be a self-evident principle of ethics, specifically recognized in the Declaration of Independence, and therefore a principle of the political system of the United States. And, finally, they demonstrated the ruinous policy of the system of slave labor in the economy of the country.
There is no question that Mr. Tallmadge and his friends had taken strong ground, and that it would require extraordinary efforts to dislodge them.
| Replies to the arguments of the restrictionists. |
During the first debate upon the subject, the opponents of the restriction do not seem to have been so clear in their own minds in reference to the principles involved as they became later, and their arguments do not appear so convincing. Nevertheless, they touched the point which was the real gist of the contention, and dealt with it ably from the first. Mr. Scott, the delegate from Missouri Territory, and Mr. P. P. Barbour, of Virginia, made a vigorous attack upon the claim of a power in Congress to enact the restriction, as a condition of admitting Missouri, "as a State," into the Union. They demonstrated quite clearly that the interpretation which the restrictionists placed upon the constitutional provision empowering Congress "to admit new States into the Union" would enable Congress to establish inequalities ad libitum between the original Commonwealths and the new ones; would, in principle, enable Congress to make mere provinces of the new Commonwealths. They showed conclusively that the real question of the controversy was not whether slavery should exist in Missouri or not, but was whether the Commonwealth of Missouri should be allowed to determine that matter for herself or should have it determined for her by the Congress of the United States. They pointed to the facts that the original Commonwealths exercised, before the formation of the existing Constitution of the United States, exclusive power over this matter, each for itself; that the Constitution had not withdrawn this power from them, nor prohibited it to them; and that the Constitution declared all powers not delegated to the United States Government, nor prohibited to the "States," to be reserved to the "States" respectively or to the people. They, therefore, claimed that the determination of the question whether slavery should exist in any Commonwealth or not was a power reserved by the Constitution to each Commonwealth for itself, and that the attempt to introduce a distinction between the old Commonwealths and the new, in regard to the possession of this power, was an attack upon the first principle of federal liberty, the principle of equality in powers and duties between the members of the Union, an attack which could be justified legally only by an express warrant from the Constitution itself.
They disputed outright the constitutionality of the restrictions in regard to slavery which Congress had imposed upon the Commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and held that these Commonwealths might, at any time, so amend their organic law as to introduce slavery; and they justified the restrictions imposed upon Louisiana as having express warrant from the Constitution.
They did not deny the claims of the restrictionists that slavery was ethically wrong and economically destructive, but they contended that the evil and the impolicy of it would be mitigated by allowing the slaves to be spread over a larger extent of territory, reducing thus their numerical ratio to the white population in the older Commonwealths, and enabling their masters to emigrate with them from poor and exhausted lands to rich virgin soil, instead of being obliged to keep them in want, or sell them to new and, therefore, less considerate masters. They argued, upon this point, that all importation of slaves from foreign countries having been strictly prohibited, not one slave could be added to the number already existing by allowing their movement into new territory, but that their condition would be vastly improved by the increased products of their labor.
| The pledge to maintain slave property in Louisiana in the Treaty of cession. |
They contended, finally, that the treaty with France by which Louisiana was ceded to the United States contained an express provision pledging the United States Government to protect all the existing property rights of the inhabitants of the province, and to admit these inhabitants, so soon as consistent with the principles of the Constitution of the United States, to the enjoyment of Commonwealth powers on an equality with those of the other Commonwealths of the Union.
There is no question that hostility to slavery colored the views of the restrictionists in regard to the constitutional powers of Congress, and there is also no question that the anxiety of the slaveholders to maintain the security of their property led them to exaggerate all of the defences of the Constitution in its behalf. It must, however, be conceded that the opponents of the restriction had, from the outset, the better of the argument in the question of constitutional law, and maintained it throughout the debate. They did not express themselves as clearly and as exactly as the political scientist of this age would do, but they demonstrated quite convincingly that the questions of political ethics and public policy were, at the moment, entirely impertinent, unless it could be satisfactorily established that Congress possessed the constitutional power to act in the premises. And they showed that no federal system of government could exist, as to the new Commonwealths, if Congress had the unlimited authority to distribute powers between the general Government and these Commonwealths, which the interpretation that the restrictionists placed upon the clause of the Constitution vesting Congress with the authority to "admit new States into this Union" involved.
The ethical and economical influences and considerations weighed more heavily in the minds of the Northern members than the arguments from constitutional law, although they asserted that the Constitution also was upon their side.
| Passage of the Tallmadge amendment by the House of Representatives. |
They carried the first part of Mr. Tallmadge's amendment, the prohibition upon the further introduction of slavery into Missouri, by a majority of eleven votes, and the second part, the provision for the emancipation of all slaves born in Missouri, after its admission as a Commonwealth, when they should have reached the age of twenty-five years, by a majority of four votes.
The leading men from the North who voted against the amendment were Parrot, of New Hampshire, Holmes, Mason, and Shaw, of Massachusetts, Storrs, of New York, Bloomfield, of New Jersey, Harrison, of Ohio, and McLean, of Illinois. They were strong and fearless men and no friends to slavery, but they were good constitutional lawyers, and they felt that it was better to stand by the Constitution with slavery than to expose it to the strain of exaggerated interpretations.
| The Missouri bill in the Senate. |
It was upon February 17th, 1819, that the Missouri bill was finally passed by the House and sent to the Senate. It was immediately read twice in the Senate and referred to the committee in charge of the bill for admitting Alabama.
On the 22nd, Mr. Tait, of Georgia, in behalf of the committee, reported the bill to the Senate, with the recommendation that the Tallmadge amendment be stricken out.
The annals of Congress state that "a long and animated debate" took place upon this recommendation, but the speeches are not reported. It may be safely concluded, however, that the argument against the power of Congress to pass the amendment prevailed very decidedly in the minds of the members of this more calm and judicial body. They voted, twenty-two to sixteen, against the first part of the amendment, and thirty-one to seven against the second part. Such men as Otis, of Massachusetts, and Lacock, of Pennsylvania, voted against the entire amendment, and Daggett, of Connecticut, and even Rufus King, of New York, recorded their voices against the second part of it.
| Passage of the original bill by the Senate. |
The bill admitting Missouri, without the Tallmadge amendment, passed the Senate on March 2nd, and was returned to the House substantially in this form. The House immediately refused to agree to the striking out of the amendment, and the Senate resolved thereupon to adhere to its own act. The bill was thus lost for the session, and the Missouri question became the firebrand with which to light up fanatical and incendiary passions, both at the North and