The Middle Period, 1817-1858. John William Burgess
South, during the following recess of the Congress.
| The Missouri bill during the session of 1819–20. |
At the beginning of the session of 1819–20, Mr. Scott secured the reference of the memorials concerning the admission of Missouri, presented at the preceding session, to a select committee. On the following day, December 9th, Mr. Scott reported a bill from this committee, which authorized the inhabitants of that part of Missouri Territory already described to form a constitution and Commonwealth government. This new bill was read twice and referred to the committee of the Whole House for discussion.
| The policy of the restrictionists to delay the admission of any new Commonwealths. |
Warned by the experiences of the preceding session, the restrictionists now took another tack. They developed the plan of delaying the formation of any more Commonwealths in the Missouri Territory until Congress could abolish slavery in the whole of it.
During the debate of the preceding session upon the power of Congress to impose upon new Commonwealths, at the time of their creation, limitations not prescribed by the Constitution, it had been asserted by the restrictionists, and not denied by their opponents, that Congress could control the status of the Territories, and keep slavery out of them or abolish it in them, at its own discretion, during the period before the Territories should be permitted to assume Commonwealth government. This seems to have been considered by nearly all, if not quite all, as a fair interpretation of that provision of the Constitution which vests in Congress the power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the Territories of the United States. The friends of slavery restriction now determined to take advantage of this possibility, even at this late day, and go back to the work of clearing all the Territories west of the Mississippi of slavery by a Congressional Act; after which the formation of new Commonwealths in these Territories might be delayed until they could be settled by a population, which would, by local law, maintain the free status. Mr. John W. Taylor, of New York, seems to have formulated the plan. On the 14th of December he moved the appointment of a committee to consider the question of prohibiting the further introduction of slavery into the Territories of the United States west of the Mississippi. The proposition was voted, and Mr. Taylor himself was appointed the chairman of the committee. Mr. Taylor then moved that the consideration of the Missouri bill be postponed to the first Monday of the following February. The friends of this bill objected most strenuously to this proposition, and Mr. Taylor's party compromised with them by agreeing to shorten the period of the proposed postponement to the second Monday of January.
| Mr. Taylor's proposition. |
Mr. Taylor's plan was moderate in its character. He did not propose to emancipate slaves already held within these Territories or their issue born therein, but simply to prevent any further increase by immigration or importation. It is difficult to see how the slaveholders themselves could have opposed this proposition with much vigor. They had, nearly all of them, professed to regard slavery as an evil, though they had suggested that the evil would be mitigated by the spreading of the slaves over more territory. It was at any rate to be expected that those Representatives and Senators from the North, who had voted against the Tallmadge amendment from legal scruples only, would join with the restrictionists in the support of Mr. Taylor's measure, since they all regarded slavery restriction as sound policy wherever the Constitution would permit it. There certainly seemed to be a fair chance for the passage of a law which would protect the Territories from, at least, any considerable increase of the slave population which might already be within them, and give white immigration a chance to occupy and fill them, and form free Commonwealths in them. But this passing hope was dashed by a conjunction of events, the elements of which had already presented themselves.
| The petition from the convention in Maine for the admission of Maine. The bill for the admission of Maine reported and passed by the House of Representatives. |
The people resident in that part of Massachusetts known as the district of Maine had, through delegates in convention assembled, framed a Commonwealth constitution and government. The assent of Massachusetts had been regularly given to the division of the old Commonwealth. And on December 8th, 1819, Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, presented to the House of Representatives a petition from the constitutional convention in the district of Maine, praying for the admission of Maine, as a Commonwealth, into the Union, on an equality with the Commonwealths already existing. The people of this district had not asked the permission of Congress to form a constitution and government, for the reason afterwards alleged that they were already in the enjoyment of this status as a part of Massachusetts. The reason offered was not, however, entirely satisfactory, and the people of the district were hardly able to clear themselves from the charge of an undue assumption of powers. The petition was, however, immediately referred to a committee, with Mr. Holmes as chairman. On the 21st, Mr. Holmes reported a bill to the House providing for the admission of the district as a Commonwealth. On the 30th, the House, in committee of the Whole, took up the bill for consideration, and in the course of the debate upon it Mr. Clay suggested the connection of the Missouri bill with the Maine bill. Mr. Clay did not, however, put his suggestion into the form of a motion, and therefore the House came to no vote upon the point at this juncture. The bill for the admission of Maine was passed on January 3rd, 1820, without any connection with the Missouri bill, and without any restrictions or limitations upon the powers of the new Commonwealth beyond what the Constitution of the United States placed upon those of the original Commonwealths. Mr. Clay's suggestion was not, however, lost upon the Senate, as will be seen later.
| The failure of Mr. Taylor's plan for preventing slavery extension. |
Meanwhile Mr. Taylor's committee had not been able to come to any agreement. On December 28th, 1819, before the final passage of the Maine bill, Mr. Taylor stated to the House that the committee had instructed him to ask for its discharge. The House agreed to his request, and he immediately moved that a new committee be appointed, and "instructed to report a bill" prohibiting the further admission of slaves into the Territories of the United States west of the Mississippi River. This motion evidently appeared to the House to be a prejudgment of the whole question, since it postponed the consideration of it indefinitely.
| The Missouri bill again before the House of Representatives. |
The Missouri bill was, however, also allowed to rest until January 24th, 1820, and when, upon that day, the Speaker announced the bill as the first order, Mr. Taylor moved for another week's delay, and the motion was lost by only a single vote. On the next day the House, in committee of the Whole, proceeded to consider the bill. On the 26th, Mr. Storrs, of New York, undertook to connect the prohibition of slavery in the region north of the thirty-eighth parallel of latitude and west of the Mississippi River and the proposed Missouri boundary with the grant of the permission to form a Commonwealth in Missouri. The opponents of slavery extension did not, however, regard this as sufficient compensation for their support of the bill, and Mr. Storrs' motion was lost.
| Mr. Taylor's amendment to the bill. |
Whereupon Mr. Taylor moved that the people of Missouri should be required to ordain and establish in their constitution the prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, in the proposed Commonwealth. Conceding, as the result of the discussions, and the action of the Congress during the preceding session, that Congress had no constitutional authority to impose restrictions upon new Commonwealths, as the condition of their admission into the Union, which the Constitution did not impose upon the original Commonwealths, the new question involved in Mr. Taylor's motion, from the point of view of constitutional law, now was, whether Congress could require of a new Commonwealth, as the condition of its admission to the Union,