y had been admitted on
condition that their constitutions should not be repugnant to the sixth
article of the Ordinance of 1787. The State of Louisiana had been
admitted under explicit conditions. It was fully competent for Congress,
by virtue of its authority over Territories, to regulate all the stages
in the process of framing a constitution, and then to give or to
withhold its approval.

The most brilliant argument on the other side was made by William
Pinkney, of Maryland. Conceding that the power of Congress was
discretionary, he insisted that Congress might not exact terms which
would interfere with the results to be accomplished. "What, then," he
asked, "is the professed result? To admit a State into this Union. What
is that Union?... An equal Union between parties equally sovereign....
It is into that Union that a new State is to come. By acceding to it
the new State is placed on the same footing with the original States....
If it comes in shorn of its beams--crippled and disparaged beyond the
original States--it is not into the original Union that it comes.... The
first was a Union _inter pares_; this is a Union between _disparates_,
between giants and a dwarf, between power and feebleness, between full
proportioned sovereignties and a miserable image of power."

Yet there were Senators and Representatives from the North who would not
be diverted from the discussion of the larger sectional and ethical
issues involved in the extension of slavery. Chief among these was Rufus
King, who then represented New York in the Senate. His cogent arguments
made a profound impression. "The great slaveholders in the House," Adams
wrote in his journal, "gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as
they heard him."

[Map: House Vote on the Missouri Compromise March 2, 1820]

Meantime, a joint committee of conference was endeavoring to reconcile
the differences between the House and the Senate. The House was put at a
disadvantage by the approach of March 4--when the consent of
Massachusetts to the admission of Maine would expire. It was finally
agreed that the Senate should pass the bill admitting Maine as a
separate measure, while the House should accept the Missouri Bill with
the Thomas amendment. Missouri, in short, was to come in as a slave
State, but slavery was forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana
Purchase north of her southern boundary. An analysis of the voting in
the House of Representatives reveals no