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of that vast and fertile, but Slave-ridden old French Colony of "Louisiana" were developed in due time the rich and flourishing Slave States of Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas.

      It will have been observed that this acquisition of the Colony of Louisiana and the contemporaneous inventions of the cotton-gin, improved cotton-spinning machinery, and the application to it of steam power, had already completely neutralized the wisdom of the Fathers in securing, as they thought, the gradual but certain extinction of Slavery in the United States, by that provision in the Constitution which enabled Congress, after an interval of twenty years, to prohibit the African Slave Trade; and which led the Congress, on March 22, 1794, to pass an Act prohibiting it; to supplement it in 1800 with another Act in the same direction; and on March 2, 1807, to pass another supplemental Act—to take effect January 1, 1808—still more stringent, and covering any such illicit traffic, whether to the United States or with other countries. Never was the adage that, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley," more painfully apparent. Slaves increased and multiplied within the land, and enriched their white owners to such a degree that, as the years rolled by, instead of compunctions of conscience on the subject of African Slavery in America, the Southern leaders ultimately persuaded themselves to the belief that it was not only moral, and sanctioned by Divine Law, but that to perpetuate it was a philanthropic duty, beneficial to both races! In fact one of them declared it to be "the highest type of civilization."

      In 1812, the State of Louisiana, organized from the purchased Colony of the same name, was admitted to the Union, and the balance of the Louisiana purchase was thereafter known as the Territory of Missouri.

      In 1818 commenced the heated and protracted struggle in Congress over the admission of the State of Missouri—created from the Territory of that name—as a Slave State, which finally culminated in 1820 in the settlement known thereafter as the "Missouri Compromise."

Briefly stated, that struggle may be said to have consisted in the efforts of the House on the one side, to restrict Slavery in the State of Missouri, and the efforts of the Senate on the other, to give it free rein. The House insisted on a clause in the Act of admission providing, "That the introduction 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 another2, 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 enact such as would absolutely prevent the immigration of Free Negroes or Mulattoes, a further Compromise was agreed to by Congress under the inspiration of Mr. Clay, by which it was laid down as a condition precedent to her admission as a State—a condition subsequently complied with—that Missouri must pledge herself that her Legislature should pass no act "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."

      This, in a nut-shell, was the memorable Missouri Struggle, and the "Compromise" or Compromises which settled and ended it. But during that struggle—as during the formation of the Federal Constitution and at various times in the interval when exciting questions had arisen—the bands of National Union were more than once rudely strained, and this time to such a degree as even to shake the faith of some of the firmest believers in the perpetuity of that Union. It was during this bitter struggle that John Adams wrote to Jefferson: "I am sometimes Cassandra enough to dream that another Hamilton, another Burr, may rend this mighty fabric in twain, or perhaps into a leash, and a few more choice spirits of the same stamp might produce as many Nations in North America as there are in Europe."

      It is true that we had "sown the wind," but we had not yet "reaped the whirlwind."

1. Prior to 1752, when Georgia surrendered her charter and became a Royal Colony, the holding of slaves within its limits was expressly prohibited by law; and the Darien (Ga.) resolutions of 1775 declared not only a "disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural practice of Slavery in America" as "a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our Liberties (as well as lives) but a determination to use our utmost efforts for the manumission of our slaves in this colony upon the most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves."

2. Hon. John Holmes of Massachusetts, of said Committee on Conference, March 2, 1820.

      Chapter II.

       Protection and Free Trade

       Table of Contents

      We have seen that the first Federal Congress met at New York in March, 1789. It organized April 6th. None knew better than its members that the war of the Americana Revolution chiefly grew out of the efforts of Great Britain to cripple and destroy our Colonial industries to the benefit of the British trader, and that the Independence conquered, was an Industrial as well as Political Independence; and none knew better than they, that the failure of the subsequent political Confederation of States was due mainly to its failure to encourage and protect the budding domestic manufactures of those States. Hence they hastened, under the leadership of James Madison, to pass "An Act laying a duty on goods, wares and merchandize imported into the United States," with a preamble, declaring it to be "necessary" for the "discharge of the debt of the United States and the encouragement and protection of manufactures." It was approved by President Washington July 4, 1789—a date not without its significance—and levied imports both specific and ad valorem. It was not only our first Tariff Act, but, next to that prescribing the oath used in organizing the Government, the first Act of the first Federal Congress; and was passed in pursuance of the declaration of President Washington in his first Message, that "The safety and interest of the People" required it. Under the inspiration of Alexander Hamilton the Tariff of 1790 was enacted at the second session of the same Congress, confirming the previous Act and increasing some of the protective duties thereby imposed.

      An analysis of the vote in the House of Representatives on this Tariff Bill discloses the fact that of the 39 votes for it, 21 were from Southern States, 13 from the Middle States, and 5 from

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