ssachusetts, as chairman, made the
following report:
"1. The Senate should give up the combination of Missouri in the
same bill with Maine.
"2. The House should abandon the attempt to restrict Slavery in
Missouri.
"3. Both Houses should agree to pass the Senate's separate
Missouri bill, with Mr. Thomas's restriction or compromising
proviso, excluding Slavery from all territory north and west of
Missouri.
"The report having been read,
"The first and most important question was put, viz.:
"Will the House concur with the Senate in so much of the said
amendments as proposes to strike from the fourth section of the
[Missouri] bill the provision prohibiting Slavery or involuntary
servitude in the contemplated State, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes?"
The vote resulted as follows: For giving up restriction on Missouri,
yeas, 90; against giving up restriction of slavery in Missouri, 87.
Mr. Taylor, of New York, offered an amendment to include Arkansas
Territory under the prohibition of slavery in the territory west and
north of Missouri, but his amendment was cut off by a call for the
previous question. Then the House concurred in the Senate amendment
excluding forever slavery from the territory west and north of
Missouri by a vote of 134 to 42! And on the following day the bill
admitting Maine into the Union was passed without opposition.
Thus the Northern delegates in Congress were whipped into line, and
thus did the South gain her point in the extension of slavery in
violation of the sacred compact between the States contained in the
ordinance of 1787.
But the struggle was opened afresh when Missouri presented herself for
admission on the 16th of November, 1820. The constitution of this new
State, adopted by her people on the 19th of July, 1820, contained the
following resolutions which greatly angered the Northern members, who
so keenly felt the defeat and humiliation they had Suffered so
recently:
"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws, first,
for the emancipation of Slaves without the consent of their
owners, or without paying them, before such emancipation, a full
equivalent for such slaves so emancipated; and second: to prevent
_bona-fide_ emigrants to this State, or actual settlers therein,
from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of their
Ter
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