INCREASED REVERENCE OF SLAVERY.

37

"The conspiracy thus exposed by Jackson and confessed by recent parties to it, was quickened by the growing passion for slavery throughout the slave States. The well-known opinions of the fathers, the declared convictions of all who were most eminent at the foundation of the Government, and the example of Washington were all discarded, and it was recklessly avowed that slavery is a divine institution-the highest type of civilization—a blessing to master and slave alike—and the very key-stone of our national arch. A generation has grown up with this teaching, so that it is now ready to say with Satan,

"Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least

Divided empire with heaven's king I hold;

As man ere long and this new world shall know.'"*

We shall see, in future chapters, convincing proofs of these general statements.

*Sumner's oration at Cooper Institute.

3

CHAPTER II.

ADOPTION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

Comparative quiet on the Slavery Question-Why Revived-Dictation and Arrogance-Its Origin― Bill for the Admission of Missouri - Gen. Tallmadge's Amendment-Debate thereon-Adopted by the House-Bill Lost in the Senate Application Renewed next Session- Proviso Prohibiting Slavery North of 88th Parallel-Taylor Proviso-Debate thereon-Bill for the Admission of Maine - Mr. Thomas' Amendment of Missouri Bill-Slavery Limited to the parallel of 36°30′-Passage of the Bill-Debate on the Missouri Constitution-Final Disposition of the Subject - Its Importance.

For several years after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, no questions arose especially affecting the interests of slavery; and upon that subject, therefore, there was comparative quiet. During that period, our territory was extended by the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, and Florida in 1819, opening a wider field for slave labor. The invention of the Cotton Gin, and of improved machinery for the manufacture of cotton fabrics, had given a value to that staple, and an increased demand for it, far exceeding all former experience or expectation.

This important addition to the value of the great slave-product, gave a corresponding importance to the institution itself, and led to those energetic and persistent efforts, to extend and consolidate its powers, which have marked its entire subsequent history; and which culminated in the rebellion.

In all the contests which have arisen in this country upon the question of slavery, its friends have always manifested a peculiar jealousy of those whose interests were not identical with their own. Their language and their manner have been marked by a spirit of arrogance and dictation, of which few parallels can be found in the world's history, and which is due

JEFFERSON'S OPINION.

39

to the influence of their social system. Jefferson, whose forecaste, whose experience of that system, and whose patriotism made him a safe counsellor, traces the cause in a few memorable words:

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. . . . . . The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by its odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should a statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one, and the amor patrice of the other! And can the liberties of the nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, -a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the gifts of God, that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."

Prophetic words! fully and most emphatically verified in the history of the causes which produced, and the events which attended the horrid rebellion.

The first notable contest, for the manifestation of this spirit, arose upon the question of admitting Missouri into the Union as a State. It arose during the month of January, 1819, on a bill introduced by the delegate from that territory, admitting it into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States. The bill was appropriately referred, and on

40

AMENDMENT TO THE MISSOURI BILL.

the 15th day of February following, Gen. Tallmadge submitted an amendment to the bill, providing that the introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude, except for crimes, should be prohibited within the bounds of the proposed State, and that all children born therein after the admission thereof into the Union, should be free at the age of twenty-five years. This amendment was seconded by John W. Taylor of New York, and laid over for two months. On the fifteenth of that month, Mr. Scott opened the debate in opposition to Mr. Tallmadge's proviso, by assuming the position that Congress had no power to impose any restrictions upon the people of his territory, or to require their assent to such a condition as a pre-requisite to their admission into the Union. Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, followed on the same side, with great warmth, and declared that if the motion should prevail, it would be the death knell of the American Union. Mr. Clay insisted that the constitutional authority of Congress extended no further than to guaranty the incoming States an admission into the Union, whenever it should appear that their form of municipal government was republican; that their sovereignty must remain unrestricted. Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire, replied in an animated speech, and cited the authority of Mr. Jefferson, that if a slave were entitled to a country anywhere, it was in the land of his birth, and that as well the safety and prosperity of the white population and their children, who learn despotism, rather than the principles of liberty, from the degrading practice, as the interests and happiness of slaves themselves, required the institution to be excluded from all domain not already under its blight. Mr. Colston, of Virginia, replied in a furious accusation, that Mr. L. had been speaking to the galleries, had endeavored to excite a servile war, and deserved the fate of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. Mr. Fuller, of Massachusetts, asserted that slaves were men, and being men, were, under our republican form of gov in

GEN. TALLMADGE'S SPEECH.

41

ment, born free, and entitled to liberty; that it was a violation of principle to leave slavery in the old States, and would be a violation of the Constitution to permit it in new ones. He maintained that it was susceptible of the clearest demonstration that the implied agreement, in the Constitution, that Congress should not interfere with it in the States where it existed when the Constitution was formed, could not be extended by construction over other territory. The debate was protracted and sometimes violent. It was participated in by others, and finally terminated in the House of Representatives with the following peroration from Gen. Tallmadge:

"My resolution proposes to set bounds to the most cruel and dehasing slavery the world has ever witnessed. It looks to the freedom of unredeemed and unregenerated human beings. It is an object interwoven with my existence. My purpose is fixed- I shall not retract. If a dissolution of the Union If civil war, which gentlemen

must take place, let it be so. so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come. My hold on life is probably as frail as that of any man who hears me; but while that hold lasts, it shall be devoted to the service of my country-to the freedom of man. If blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to kindle, I can assure gentlemen, while I regret the necessity, I shall not forbear to contribute my mite. I have the fortune and the honor to stand here as the representative of freemen who profess intelligence to know their rights, and who have the spirit to maintain them. I know the will of my constituents; and, regardless of consequences, I will avow it. As their representative, I will proclaim their hatred to : lavery in every shape. As their representative here, I will hold my stand till this floor, with the Constitution of my country which supports it, shall sink beneath me. If I am doomed to fall, I shall, at least, have the painful consolation to believe that I fall as a fragment in the ruins of my country."