roduction of Slavery or involuntary servitude be
prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party has
been duly convicted; and that all children born within the said State,
after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be declared Free at
the age of twenty-five years." The Senate resisted it--and the Bill
fell. In the meantime, however, a Bill passed both Houses forming the
Territory of Arkansas out of that portion of the Territory of Missouri
not included in the proposed State of Missouri, without any such
restriction upon Slavery. Subsequently, the House having passed a Bill
to admit the State of Maine to the Union, the Senate amended it by
tacking on a provision authorizing the people of Missouri to organize a
State Government, without restriction as to Slavery. The House
decidedly refused to accede to the Senate proposition, and the result of
the disagreement was a Committee of Conference between the two Houses,
and the celebrated "Missouri Compromise," which, in the language of
another--[Hon. John Holmes of Massachusetts, of said Committee on
Conference, March 2, 1820.]--, was: "that the Senate should give up its
combination of Missouri with Maine; that the House should abandon its
attempt to restrict Slavery in Missouri; and that both Houses should
concur in passing the Bill to admit Missouri as a State, with" a
"restriction or proviso, excluding Slavery from all territory north and
west of the new State"--that "restriction or proviso" being in these
words: "That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States
under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees,
thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is
included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act,
Slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of
crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is
hereby forever prohibited; Provided always, that any person escaping
into the same, from whom labor and service is lawfully claimed in any
State or Territory of the United States, such Fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
service, as aforesaid." At a subsequent session of Congress, at which
Missouri asked admission as a State with a Constitution prohibiting her
Legislature from passing emancipation laws, or such as would prevent the
immigration of Slaves, while requiring it to