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that "the further introduction of Slavery or involuntary | port and maintain State rights, which it conceiv servitude, except for the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be prohibited; and that all children born within the said Territory, after its admission into the Union as a State, shall be free, but may be held to service until the age of twentyfive years."

Resolved, That the Governor be, and he is hereby, requested to cause a copy of the foregoing preamble and resolution to be transmitted to each of the Senators and Representatives of this State in the Congress of the United States.

sary to be supported and maintained, to pres
liberties of the free people of these United
avows its solemn conviction, that the States
confederated under one common Constitution,
a right to deprive new States of equal privil
themselves. Therefore,

Resolved, by the General Assembly of the wealth of Kentucky, That the Senators in Cong this State be instructed, and the Representa requested, to use their efforts to procure the pas law to admit the people of Missouri into the Ur State, whether those people will sanction Sla their Constitution or not.

Resolved, That the Executive of this Comme be requested to transmit this Resolution to the and Representatives of this State in Congres may be laid before that body for its considerat

The bill authorizing Missouri to form stitution, etc., came up in the Hous special order, Jan. 24th. Mr. Taylor, o moved that it be postponed for one Lost: Yeas 87; Nays 88. Whereup House adjourned. It was considered i mittee the next day, as also on the 28 30th, and thence debated daily until t of February, when a bill came down fr

The Senate unanimously concurred, and the Resolves Senate "to admit the State of Maine in were signed by Gov. William Findlay.

Union," but with a rider authorizing the of Missouri to form a State Constitutio

without restriction on the subject of Sla

The House, very early in the session, a bill providing for the admission of Mai State. This bill came to the Senate, a sent to its Judiciary Committee aforesaid amended it by adding a provision for Miss above. After several days' debate in Sena Roberts, of Pa., moved to recommit, so strike out all but the admission of Maine; was defeated (Jan. 14th, 1820)-Yeas 18 25. Hereupon Mr. Thomas, of Ill., (who with the majority, as uniformly again restriction on Missouri) gave notice th should

"ask leave to bring a bill to prohibit the intro of Slavery into the Territories of the United North and West of the contemplated State souri;"

it was read and ordered to a third readin [NOTE. Great confusion and misconception e the public mind with regard to the "Missouri tion," two totally different propositions being ca that name. The original Restriction, which M vehemently opposed, and Mr. Jefferson in a characterized as a "fire-bell in the night," conten the limitation of Slavery in its exclusion from th of Missouri. This was ultimately defeated, as v see. The second proposed Restriction was that Thomas, just cited, which proposed the exclu Slavery, not from the State of Missouri, but fre Territories of the United States North and West State. This proposition did not emanate from th nal Missouri Restrictionists, but from their adve and was but reluctantly and partially accepted former.]

The Maine admission bill, with the pro amendments, was discussed through s days, until, Feb. 16th, the question was

the Judiciary Committee's amend (authorizing Missouri to form a State Cor tion, and saying nothing of Slavery), were adopted by the following vote:

Yeas-Against the Restriction on Missouri, 23. [20 from Slave States; 3 from Free Sta Nays-For Restriction, 21.

[19 from Free States; 2 from Delaware Mr. Thomas, of Ill., then proposed his a

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ment, which, on the following day, he withdrew and substituted the following:

And be it further enacted, 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 north latitude, excepting 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 where labor or 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.

Mr. Trimble, of Ohio, moved a substitute for this, somewhat altering the boundaries of the regions shielded from Slavery, which was rejected: Yeas 20 (Northern); Nays 24 (Southern).

The question then recurred on Mr. Thomas's amendment, which was adopted, as follows:

Yeas-For excluding Slavery from all the Territory North and West of Missouri: Messrs. Brown of La.,

Burrill of R. I.,
Dana of Conn.,
Dickerson of N. J.,
Eaton of Tenn.,
Edwards of Ill.,
Horsey of Del.,
Hunter of R. I.,
Johnson of Ky.,
Johnson of La..

King (Wm. R.) of Ala.,
King (Rufus) of N. Y.,
Lanman of Conn.,

Leake of Miss.,
Lowrie of Pa.,
Lloyd of Md.,

Logan of Ky.,

Nays-Against such

Messrs. Barbour of Va.,

Elliott of Ga.,
Gaillard of S. C.,
Macon of N. C.,
Noble of Ind.,

Mellen of Mass.,
Morrill of N. Η.,
Otis of Mass.,
Palmer of Vt.,
Parrott of N. Η.,
Pinkney of Md.,
Roberts of Pa.,
Ruggles of Ohio,
Sanford of N. Y.,
Stokes of N. С.,
Thomas of Ill.,
Tichenor of Vt.,

Trimble of Ohio,

Van Dyke of Del.,
Walker of Ala.,
Williams of Tenn.,
Wilson of N. J.-34.

Restriction:

Pleasants of Va.,
Smith (Wm.) of S. C..
Taylor of Ind.,
Walker of Ga.,
Williams of Miss.-10.

[It will here be seen that the Restriction ultimately adopted that excluding Slavery from all territory then owned by the United States North and West of the Southwest border of the State of Missouri-was proposed by an early and steadfast opponent of the Restriction originally proposed, relative to Slavery in the contemplated State of Missouri, and was sustained by the votes of fourteen Senators from Slave States, including the Senators from Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana, with one vote each from North Carolina and Mississippi.

The current assumption that this Restriction was proposed by Rufus King, of New-York, and mainly sustained by the antagonists of Slavery Extension, is wholly mistaken. The truth, doubtless, is, that it was suggested by the more moderate opponents of the proposed Restriction on Missouri-and supported also by Senators from Slave States as a means of overcoming the resistance of the House to Slavery in Missouri. It was, in effect, an offer from the milder opponents of Slavery Restriction to the more moderate and flexible advocates of that Restriction-"Let us have Slavery in Missouri, and we will unite with you in excluding it from all the uninhabited territories North and West of that State." It was in substance an agreement between the North and the South to that

effect, though the more determined champions, whether of Slavery Extension or Slavery Restriction, did not unite in it.]

The bill, thus amended, was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading by the following vote:

Yeas-For the Missouri Bill:

Messrs. Barbour of Va.,
Brown of La.,
Eaton of Tenn.,
Edwards of Ill.,
Elliott of Ga.,
Gaillard of S. C.,
Horsey of Del.,
Hunter of R. I.,
Johnson of Ky.,
Johnson of La.,
King of Ala.,
Leake of Miss.,

Nays-Against the Bill:

Messrs. Burrill of R. I.,
Dana of Conn.,
Dickerson of N. J.,
King of N. Y.,
Lanman of Conn.,
Lowrie of Pa.,
Macon of N. C.,
Mellen of Mass.,
Morrill of N. Η.,
Noble of Ind.,

currence.

Lloyd of Md., Logan of Ky., Parrott of N H., Pinkney of Md., Pleasants of Va., Stokes of N. C, Thomas of Ill., Van Dyke of Del., Walker of Ala., Walker of Ga., Williams of Miss., Williams of Tenn-24.

Otis of Mass., Palmer of Vt., Roberts of Pa., Ruggles of Ohio, Sanford of N. Y., Smith of S. C., Taylor of Ind., Tichenor of Vt., Trimble of Ohio., Wilson of N. J.-20.

The bill was thus passed (Feb. 18th) without further division, and sent to the House for conIn the House, Mr. Thomas's amendment (as above) was at first rejected by both parties, and defeated by the strong vote of 159 to 18. The Yeas (to adopt) were,

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Prior to this vote, the House disagreed to the log-rolling of Maine and Missouri, into one bill by the strong vote of 93 to 72. [We do not give the Yeas and Nays on this decision; but the majority was composed of the representatives of the Free States with only four exceptions; and Mr. Louis McLane of Delaware, who was constrained by instructions from his legislature. His colleague, Mr. Willard Hall, did not vote.]

The members from Free States who voted with the South to keep Maine and Missouri united in one bill were, Messrs. H. Baldwin of Pa.,

Bloomfield of N. J.,

Henry Meigs of N. Y., Henry Shaw of Mass.,

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Nays, 23; (20 from Slave States with Messrs. Taylor of Ind., Edwards and Thomas of Ill.)

The Senate also voted not to recede from its amendment prohibiting Slavery west of Missouri, and north of 36° 30', north latitude. (For receding, 9 from Slave States, with Messrs. Noble and Taylor of Ind. against it, 33-(22 from Slave States, 11 from Free States.)

The

remaining amendments of the Senate were then insisted on without division, and the House notified accordingly.

The bill was now returned to the House, which, on motion of Mr. John W. Taylor of N. Y, voted to insist on its disagreement to all but Sec. 9 of the Senate's amendments, by Yeas 97 to Nays 76: (all but a purely sectional vote: Hugh Nelson of Va. voting with the North; Baldwin of Pa., Bloomfield of N. J., and Shaw of Mass., voting with the South).

Sec. 9, (the Senate's exclusion of Slavery from the Territory north and west of Missouri) was also rejected-Yeas 160; Nays, 14, (much as before). The Senate thereupon (March 2nd) passed the House's Missouri bill, striking out the restriction of Slavery by Yeas 27 to Nays 15, and adding without a division the exclusion of Slavery from the territory west and north of said State. Mr. Trimble again moved the exclusion of Slavery from Arkansas also, but was again voted down, Yeas, 12; Nays, 30.

The Senate now asked a conference, which the House granted without a division. The Committee of Conference was composed of Messrs. Thomas of Illinois, Pinkney of Maryland, and Barbour of Va. (all anti-restrictionists), on the part of the Senate, and Messrs. Holmes of Mass., Taylor of N. Y., Lowndes of S. C., Parker of Mass., and Kinsey of N. J., on the part of the House. (Such constitution of the Committee of Conference was in effect a surrender of the Restriction on the part of the House.) John Holmes of Mass., from this Committee, in due time (March 2nd), reported that, 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.

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DELAWARE.-Louis McLaneMARYLAND. Stephenson Archer, Thomas Thomas Culbreth, Joseph Kent, Peter Little, Neale, Samuel Ringgold, Samuel Smith, Henry field-9.

VIRGINIA.-Mark Alexander, William S. Arch P. Barbour, William A. Burwell, John Floyd, Garnett, James Johnson, James Jones, William Charles F. Mercer, Hugh Nelson, Thomas Nelso E. Parker, Jas. Pindall, John Randolph, Ballar Alexander Smyth, George F. Strother, Thor Swearingen, George Tucker, John Tyler, Jared -22.

NORTH CAROLINA. Hutchins G. Burton, Johr per, William Davidson, Weldon N. Edwards, Fisher, Thomas H. Hall, Charles Hooks, Thoma Jesse Slocumb, James S. Smith, Felix Walke Williams-12.

SOUTH CAROLINA. -Josiah Brevard, Elias Earl Erwin, William Lowndes, James McCreary, Jam street, Charles Pinckney, Eldred Simkins, Tucker-9.

GEORGIA.-Joel A. Abbot, Thomas W. Co Crawford, John A. Cuthbert, Robert R. Reid, Terrill--6.

ALABAMA.- John Crowell-1.
MISSISSIPPI.-John Rankin-1.
LOUISIANA.-Thomas Butler-1.

KENTUCKY-Richard C. Anderson, jr., William Benjamin Hardin, Alney McLean, Thomas Metca stall Quarles, Geo. Robertson, David Trimble-8. TENNESSEK. Robert Allen, Henry H. Bryan, Cannon, John Cocke, Francis Jones, John RheaTotal Yeas from Slave States, 76; in a NAYS-Against giving up the Restrict Slavery in Missouri :

NEW-HAMPSHIRE. -Joseph Buffum, jr., Josiah Clifton Clagett, Arthur Livermore, William Plur

Nathaniel Upham-6.

MASSACHUSETTS (including Maine). -Benjamin Samuel C. Allen, Joshua Cushman, Edward Dows ter Folger, jr., Timothy Fuller, Jonas Kendall, Kinsley, Samuel Lathrop, Enoch Lincoln, Marcu ton, Jeremiah Nelson, James Parker, Zabdiel Sa Nathaniel Silsbee, Ezekiel Whitman-16. RHODE ISLAND. -Nathaniel Hazard-1. CONNECTICUT. -Jonathan O. Moseley, Elisha John Russ, Gideon Tomlinson-4.

VERMONT. Samuel C. Crafts, Rollin C. Mallar Meech, Charles Rich, Mark Richards, William Stre NEW-YORK.-Nathaniel Allen, Caleb Baker, Clark, Jacob H. De Witt, John D. Dickinson, Joh William D. Ford, Ezra C. Gross, James Guy Aaron Hackley, jr., George Hall, Joseph S. I Robert Monell, Nathaniel Pitcher, Jonathan Rich Randall S. Street, James Strong, John W. Taylor, H. Tracy, Solomon Van Rensselear, Peter H. Wer Silas Wood-22.

Southard-8.

NEW-JERSEY. -Ephraim Bateman, John Linn, PENNSYLVANIA.-Andrew Boden, William Darli George Dennison, Samuel Edwards, Thomas F Samuel Gross, Joseph Hemphill, Jacob Hibs Joseph Heister, Jacob Hostetter, William P. M

Marchand, Robert Moore, Samuel Moore

Murray, Thomas Patterson, Robert Philson, Thor Rogers, John Sergeant, Christian Tarr, James M

lace-21.

OHIO.-Philemon Beecher, Henry Brush, Joh Campbell, Samuel Herrick, Thomas R. Ross, John -6.

INDIANA.-William Hendricks-1.
ILLINOIS.-Daniel P. Cook-1.

Total, Nays, 87-all from Free States.

(The members apparently absent on th portant division, were Henry W. Edward Conn., Walter Case and Honorius Peck of and John Condit of N. J., from the Free St with Lemuel Sawyer of N. C., and I Walker of Ky., from the Slave States. Clay of Ky., being Speaker, did not vote.) This defeat broke the back of the Nor resistance to receiving Missouri as a State.

Mr. Taylor, of N. Y., now moved an an ment, intended to include Arkansas Terr

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Nays

under the proposed Inhibition of Slavery west of Missouri; but this motion was cut off by the Previous Question, (which then cut off amendments more rigorously, according to the rules of the House, than it now does), and the House proceeded to concur with the Senate in inserting the exclusion of Slavery from the territory west and north of Missouri, instead of that just stricken out by, 134 Yeas to 42 Nays, (the Nays being from the South). So the bill was passed in the form indicated above; and the bill admitting Maine as a State, (relieved, by a conference, from the Missouri rider,) passed both Houses without a divison, on the following day. Such was the virtual termination of the struggle for the restriction of Slavery in Missouri, which was beaten by the plan of proffering instead an exclusion of Slavery from all the then federal territory west and north of that State. It is unquestionable that, without this compromise or equivalent, the Northern votes, which passed the bill, could not have been obtained for it.

THE THIRD MISSOURI STRUGGLE.

Though the acceptance of Missouri as a State, with a Slave Constitution, was forever settled by the votes just recorded, a new excitement sprang up on her presenting herself to Congress (Nov. 16, 1820),) with a State Constitution, framed on the 19th of July, containing the following resolutions:

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 Territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be slaves, so long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as slaves by the laws of this State. It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be necessary,

First, to prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in, this State, under any pretext whatever.

The North, still smarting under a sense of its defeat on the question of excluding Slavery from Missouri, regarded this as needlessly defiant, insulting, and inhuman, and the section last quoted as palpably in violation of that clause of the Federal Constitution which gives to the citizens of each State (which blacks are, in several Free States), the rights of citizens in every State. A determined resistance to any such exclusion was manifested, and a portion of the Northern Members evinced a disposition to renew the struggle against the further introduction of slaves into Missouri. At the first effort to carry her admission, the House voted it down-Yeas, 79; Nays, 93. A second attempt to admit her, on condition that she would expunge the obnoxious clause (last quoted) of her Constitution, was voted down still more decisively-Yeas, 6; Nays 146.

The House now rested, until a joint resolve, admitting her with but a vague and ineffective qualification, came down from the Senate, where it was passed by a vote of 26 to 18-six Senators from Free States in the affirmative. Mr. Clay, who had resigned in the recess, and been succeeded, as Speaker, by John W. Taylor, of New-York, now appeared as the leader of the Missouri admissionists, and proposed terms of

compromise, which were twice voted down by the Northern members, aided by John Randolph and three others from the South, who would have Missouri admitted without condition or qualification. At last, Mr. Clay proposed a Joint Committee on this subject, to be chosen by ballot-which the House agreed to by 101 to 55; and Mr. Clay became its Chairman. By this Committee, it was agreed that a solemn pledge should be required of the Legislature of Missouri that the Constitution of that State should not be construed to authorize the passage of any Act, and that no Act should be passed, "by which any of the citizens of either of the States should be excluded from the enjoyment of the privileges and immunities to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States." The Joint Resolution, amended by the addition of this proviso, passed the House by 86 Yeas to 82 Nays; the Senate concurred (Feb. 27th, 1821,) by 26 Yeas to 15 Nays-(all Northern but Macon, of N. C.); Missouri complied with the condition, and became an accepted member of the Union. Thus closed the last stage of the fierce Missouri Controversy, which for a time seemed to threaten-as so many other controversies have harmlessly threatened --the existence of the Union.

EXTENSION OF MISSOURI.

The State of Missouri, as originally organized, was bounded on the west by a line already specified, which excluded a triangle west of said line, and between it and the Missouri, which was found, in time, to be exceedingly fertile and desirable. It was free soil by the terms of the Missouri compact, and was also covered by Indian reservations, not to be removed without a concurrence of two-thirds. of the Senate. Messrs. Benton and Linn, Senators from Missouri, undertook the difficult task. of engineering through Congress a bill including this triangle (large enough to form seven Counties) within the State of Missouri; which they effected, at the long session of 1835-6, so quietly as hardly to attract attention. The bill was first sent to the Senate's Committee on the Judiciary, where a favorable report was procured from Mr. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, its Chairman; and then it was floated through both Houses without encountering the perils of a division. The requisite Indian treaties were likewise carried through the Senate; so Missouri became possessed of a large and desirable accession of territory, which has since become one of her most populous and wealthy sections, devoted to the growing of hemp, tobacco, etc., and cultivated by slaves. This is the most proSlavery section of the State, in which was originated, and was principally sustained, that series of inroads into Kansas, corruptions of her ballot-boxes, and outrages upon her people, which earned for their authors the appellation. of Border Ruffians.

THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.

The name of Texas was originally applied to a Spanish possession or province, lying between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande del Norte, but not extending to either of these great rivers. It was an appendage of the Viceroyalty of

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Mexico, but had very few civilized inhabitants | other southwestern States, began to co down to the time of the separation of Mexico itself in Texas. The emigrants carri from Spain. On two or three occasions, bands, many of them were accompanied b of French adventurers had landed on its coast, and it was well understood that the or entered it from the adjoining French colony of Louisiana; but they had uniformly been treated as intruders, and either destroyed or made prisoners by the Spanish military authorities. No line had ever been drawn between the two colonies; but the traditional line between them, south of the Red River, ran somewhat within the limits of the present State of Louisiana.

When Louisiana was transferred by France to the United States, without specification of boundaries, collisions of claims on this frontier was apprehended. General Wilkinson, commanding the United States troops, moved gradually to the west; the Spanish commandant in Texas likewise drew toward the frontier, until they stood opposite each other across what was then tacitly settled as the boundary between the the two countries. This was never afterward disregarded.

In 1819, Spain and the United States seemed on the verge of war. General Jackson had twice invaded Florida, on the assumption of complicity on the part of her rulers and people -first with our British, then with our savage enemies and had finally overrun, and, in effect, annexed it to the Union. Spain, on the other hand, had preyed upon our commerce during the long wars in Europe, and honestly owed our merchants large sums for unjustifiable seizures and spoliations. A negotiation for the settlement of these differences was carried on at Washington, between John Quincy Adams, Mr. Monroe's Secretary of State, and Don Onis, the Spanish embassador, in the course of which Mr. Adams set up a claim, on the part of this country, to Texas as a natural geographical appendage not of Mexico, but of Louisiana. This claim, however, he eventually waived and relinquished, in consideration of a cession of Florida by Spain to this country-our government agreeing, on its part, to pay the claims of our merchants for spoliations. Texas remained, therefore, what it always had been-a department or province of Mexico, with a formal quit-claim thereto on the part of the United

intend to become Mexicans, much les quish their slaves. When Gen. Sam left Arkansas for Texas, in 1834-5, Rock Journal, which announced his e destination, significantly added: doubtless, hear of his raising his shortly." That was a foregone conclu

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Of course, the new settlers in Texa lack pretexts or provocations for su Mexico was then much as she is r governed, turbulent, anarchical, and The overthrow of her Federal Consti Santa Anna was one reason assigned rebellion against her authority which in Texas. In 1835, her independ declared; in 1836, at the decisive batt Jacinto, it was, by the rout and captu Mexican dictator, secured. This triu won by emigrants from this countr exclusively; scarcely half a dozen o Mexican inhabitants participating in the tion. Santa Anna, while a prisone restraint and apprehension, agreed to on the basis of the independence of covenant which he had no power, and no desire, to give effect to when res liberty. The Texans, pursuing their ac twice or thrice penetrated other Mex vinces-Tamaulipas, Coahuila, etc.,--an their Lone-Star flag in defiance on t of the Rio Grande del Norte; which however, they were always compelled abandon--once with severe loss. Their ment, nevertheless, in reiterating their tion of independence, claimed the Rio C their western boundary, from its sour mouth, including a large share of Tar Coahuila, Durango, and by far the mor tant and populous portion of New Mexi it was with this claim, expressly set for treaty, that President Tyler and his res advisers negotiated the first official pa annexation, which was submitted to the during the session of 1843-4, and rejec very decisive vote: only fifteen (mainl ern) senators voting to confirmit. Col. and others, urged this aggressive c boundary, as affording abundant reason rejection of this treaty; but it is no that the Slavery aspect of the case especial attention in the Senate. The however, had already been publicly e by Gen. James Hamilton, of S. C., culated to "give a Gibraltar to the Sou had, on that ground, secured a very and ardent popularity throughout the West. And, more than a year previou ral northern members of Congress had the following:

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES

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