the General Government, in all its departments, had refrained from the exercise of such a power, and Congress had always disclaimed it, up to the enactment of the Missouri compromise in 1820. The act of the first congress, containing many of the members of the old congress, and of the convention of 1787, passed in 1790 for the government of the territory of Tennessee, applied to it some of the provisions of the ordinance, but expressly excepted the restriction against slavery. So with the act of 1798 for the government of the Mississippi territory; during the passage of which, a Mr. Thatcher moved the restriction, as an amendment, when Mr. Otis of Massachusetts said: "He hoped the motion would not be withdrawn, and the reason why he wished this, was that an opportunity might be given to gentlemen who came from the same part of the Union with him to manifest that it is not their disposition to interfere with the Southern states, as to the species of property in question. By permitting slavery in this district of country, the number of slaves would not be increased, and he could see nothing in the transit of slaves from slave states into the territory, which could affect the philanthropy of his friend." Mr. Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, said: "By the laws of the different states, the importation of slaves is prohibited, but if this amendment does not obtain, he knows not how slaves could be precluded from being introduced (from abroad) by way of New Orleans, [not then a part of the United States]. He hoped, therefore, the amendment would be agreed to." The amendment was overwhelmingly voted down, and received but twelve votes. So in the act of 1804 for the government of Louisiana; in the act of 1805 for the government of the Orleans territory; and in that of 1812 for the government of the Missouri territory. In each and all of these acts, Congress had, up to 1820, disclaimed, by refusing to exercise it, any right under the constitution to extend the restriction against slavery beyond the provision made for it in the ordinance of 1787. Mr. Madison, in confirmation of his own opinion of the unconstitutionality of such a restriction, bears testimony to this uniform practice of Congress against it, through all the administrations of the fathers, through those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and his own, down to his successors. Judge McLean, in his dissenting opinion of 1856, alludes to this statement, when he says: "In a late re-publication of a letter of Mr. Madison, dated November 27, 1819, speaking of this power of Congress to

prohibit slavery in a territory, he infers there is no such power, from the fact that it has not been exercised." Congress had, by various acts, in regard to the shipping, and to the territories, endeavored as far as possible, to restrict the foreign slave trade, previous to 1808, consistently with the provision in the Constitution for its discontinuance in all the states. That provision had been uniformly construed to apply by its express words, only in favor of the states which "shall think proper to admit❞ such person, but not to include the terriCongress, therefore, as early as 1798, prohibited their importation into a territory; and afterwards, by the act, for the Louisiana or Orleans territory, prohibited the importation of such slaves directly into that territory, or of those who had been imported elsewhere since 1798, except by American citizens who shall settle in such territory; for in that year Congress had passed the prohibitory act referred to, and, as we have seen, Mr. Gallatin stated, the different states had, at that time, prohibited the importation of slaves. From the power "to regulate commerce among foreign nations," Congress derived the right to prohibit the commerce in slaves, between the states, and such nations, after 1808, and, from the same express power, the right to prohibit either the direct or indirect importation of slaves from abroad into the territories, either before or after 1808. These acts, therefore, cannot be considered in the least inconsistent with the opinion of Mr. Madison and the uniform practice of congress and the fathers in conformity to it from 1789 to 1820, viz.: that it was unconstitutional for Congress to apply the 6th Article of the ordinance of 1787 to territories not embraced by it.

In the Congress of 1818, a bill was introduced for the admission of Missouri into the Union. The 6th Article of the Ordinance of '87 was moved as an amendment to the bill, and its insertion in her constitution made a condition to her admission. The House passed the bill thus amended. The Senate rejected it. The two houses failing to agree on the question raised by the amendment, no bill for the admission of Missouri was passed at that session. During the next Congress, on the 9th of December, 1819, a similar bill was introduced in the House, and, with a like amendment proposed, passed that body on the 1st of March, 1820. On the 3d of January, 1820, a bill for the admission of Maine passed the House, whilst the Missouri bill with its restrictive amendments was pending

in that body, which had become the subject of stormy and violent debate. The Senate having, as at the previous session, a decided majority against such a restriction, which it was determined to reject, adopted two amendments to the bill for the admission of Maine. One proposed by Mr. Thomas, of Illinois, as a compromise, provided for a division of the territory outside of Missouri by the line of 36° 30'-north of which slavery was forbidden, and south of which it was allowed-a compromise having reference to a subject different from the admission of Missouri, namely, the settlement of future difficulties that might arise in disposing of other questions than the one then on hand. It was not offered by a majority of the Senate as a compromise to settle the restriction against Missouri, to which they were irreconcilably opposed; nor received as such by the majority of the House, who were in favor of that restriction; but as the settlement of a distinct subject, on which the sense of Congress had never been taken; as a compromise standing on its own independent basis, having its own supposed equivalents within itself, and in which the consideration given to the North, as stated at the time by Mr. Kinsey, of New Jersey, and its other northern friends, greatly preponderated by securing to it ninetenths of the divided territory. But the other amendment provided for the cotemporaneous admission of Missouri and Maine; and was a measure resorted to by the Senate, to unite the friends of Maine in the House with the anti-restrictionists of that body, and thus defeat the restrictionists. No compromise on that subject was offered them, but this combination was sought to overcome their majority in the House. Both of these amendments were rejected by the House. The Senate insisted on them and the House insisted on its. disagreement. Both houses then concurred in appointing committees of conference. On the 2d of March, Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, Chairman of the House Conference Committee, made his report, which was that the Senate should recede from its two amendments to the Maine bill, thus leaving Maine disconnected; that the two houses should pass the Missouri House bill, first striking out the slavery restriction clause, and substituting therefor the Thomas. provision. A like report was made to the Senate, and agreed to without count. The first action of the house on the report was on the proposition to strike from it the Missouri restriction, which was carried by a vote of ninety to eighty-seven, a mere majority of three.

This was the test vote, on which the ayes and noes were recorded. Next came up the Thomas provision, which was carried by a vote of one hundred and thirty-four to forty-two. This last vote, by the rules, passed the bill through the House and made its action final. Of the ninety who voted against the restriction on Missouri, only fourteen were from the North-ten of whom were from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, including four from Massachusetts; all of these closely connected in their relationship to Maine, and interested in her success. The conclusion from these facts is irresistible, that the separation of Maine, and her admission as an important part of the plan conceded by the anti-restrictionists, and commended by the Committee of Conference, turned the scale and obtained a majority of three in favor of Missouri. Her admission was thus secured by no other compromise than that contained in a combination of her friends. with the friends of Maine for their mutual success. The party of restrictionists who had struggled so uncompromisingly against her, of course joined, after this defeat, in sustaining the Thomas provision, which they had previously rejected, as the only restriction now left for them to vote for, and as the next best thing to do. Hence the large majority it obtained of one hundred and thirty-four to forty-two.

A small majority of the Southerners voted in the affirmative, and nearly all of those in the negative were from the South, who were decided in their convictions that the territorial, as well as the state restriction, was unconstitutional. In confirmation of the

above views, Mr. Clay, in 1850, said: "In the Senate a majority was opposed to such restriction. In the Senate, therefore, in order to carry Missouri through, a provision for her admission was coupled with the bill for the admission of Maine. They were connected, and the Senate said to the House: 'You want the bill for the admission of Maine passed. You shall not have it unless you take along with it the bill for the admission of Missouri also."" One of the ablest and boldest speeches Mr. Clay ever made was in the House on that occasion, when he appealed to the friends of Maine, and assured them that if they did not join in the defeat of the Restrictionists, and allow the young Western State to enter into the Union on an equal footing with the one from the East, Maine would not be admitted.

Not more wonderful was the error, pointed out by Mr. Clay in 1850, which he said had prevailed so long, not only in the Senate, but throughout the country, in reference to the authorship of the compromise line of 36° 30′; than is that other stupendous falsehood uttered by Republicans in all their campaigns of the past and of to-day, in direct contradiction of the records of Congress, which charges that the party, known in 1820 as the Restrictionists, consented to vote for the admission of Missouri into the Union without the restrictive clause, on the pledge given that the South would vote for the Thomas amendment; whereas, Missouri, as we have shown, was admitted against their uncompromising opposition and for no such consideration at all. After the act for the admission of Missouri had passed, and she had fully complied with its provisions, she applied in December, 1820, to Congress for recognition as a state in the Union. This was refused in violation of the pledges given in the arrangement made and of the act passed at the previous session for her admission. The pretext for this was that her constitution contained a clause directing her legislature to pass laws to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from going to or settling in the state- a provision not to be compared, in its hostility to such persons, to some of the constitutions and laws then and afterward in force in the very states which made this clause the pretext for refusing her admission into the Union. The vote on the resolution for her recognition was ninety-three against, and seventy-two for it. Of these ninety-three, seventy-two were the same men who voted against striking out the state restriction on the test vote of the previous session, and seventy-seven of them were the same who voted for the territorial restriction on the 2d of March, 1820. Mr. Clay, as chairman of a committee of thirteen, appointed at his suggestion to settle the difficulty, made a report that Missouri should be recognized as a state in the Union, upon this fundamental condition, that she should pass no law in violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens of the other states; and this resolution, as Mr. Clay said, in 1850, contained merely the declaration of "an incontestable principle of constitutional law." It is nothing more, he said, "than the principle of the paramount character of the constitution of the United States over any local constitution of any one of the states of the Union." The resolution reported by the com

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