The true history of the Missouri compromise and its repeal

Preface

The truth of history, and justice to the Author of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Hon. Archibald Dixon, of Kentucky, alike demand, from one who was in a position to know the facts, a clear statement of the origin, the motives and the circumstances of that Repeal.

The history of the Repeal necessitates that of the Compromise itself.

So far as the writer is aware, no historian has ever given, or even attempted to give, any special account of these important measures, although they embrace in their full scope the life of a nation, and cover more than the period of a century. On the contrary, the events, motives and purposes leading up to these Acts have been mostly ignored by our historians, or else much misrepresented, and the many misstatements made have done great injustice not only to the Author of the Repeal, but also to the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, who adopted it as his own measure, and embodied it in his Kansas-Nebraska bill, which was passed in 1854, after the greatest Congressional struggle that had as yet been recorded. Only the truth is needed for the vindication of both of these distinguished men as lofty and most sterling j)atriots.

Neither has any writer yet presented sufficient reasons for the extraordinary metamorphoses that took place within that period, in both the Northern and Southern sections of our country. The North, from being an vi Preface.

early advocate of secession and disunion, becoming most devoted to the Union — whilst the South, from being for years most devoted to the Union, became afterwards an advocate of secession ; not only in theory, but in practice, giving her best blood to carry it into effect, and forsaking that Union, which she had done so much to form, and for which she had fought in 1812, when New England refused to do so.

It is true also, that the majority of the Southern States desired to stop the slave trade in 1787 — and that the Northern States entered into a combination with a minority of the Southern States to prevent its prohibition by Congress for a period of twenty years — even putting this provision into the Federal Constitution itself. Yet afterwards, we find the North in favor of freeing the slaves of the South, many of whom had been brought into the country under this very provision ; and the South, from having regarded slavery as a most dangerous element, afterwards defending it as the very bulwark of liberty itself. In the events and causes leading up to the Missouri Compromise and its Repeal, we find the only solution of the enigma of these singular and phenomenal transformations.

In relating these events, my object has been, not to justify, nor yet to criminate, either the Northern, or the Southern, section of our country ; but simply to represent facts and feelings as they actually existed ; to show the utterly irreconcilable differences between the sections upon the one subject of slavery and the absolute necessity for the establishment of that great principle of non-intervention by Congress with the domestic regulations of the States, which alone could have preserved peace between the sections, left the Constitution invio-

Preface. vii

late, and prevented the dread accession of those twin evils, secession and coercion ; which principle was asserted to be the only correct one in the Congressional legislation of 1850, and was reasserted and established, in 1854, by the Repeal, by Congress, of the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820.

This work is designed to state the facts connected with those two great measures fully, clearly, truthfully and without fear or favor. It has been written under many disadvantages, such as illness, family cares and sorrows, and at long intervals of time ; the study of the subject having been begun in 1877, one year after the death of Hon. Archibald Dixon, of Kentucky, Author of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the beloved husband of the writer.

I will state that in writing this history, I wrote as I read, and from first impressions, sometimes finding them mistaken and subject to correction : but much oftener finding them confirmed and strengthened the more I read, and the more deeply I went into the subject.

In 1893, the partially completed manuscript, with my entire library, was destroyed by fire, and the task of rewriting it seemed an impossibility.

. But owing to the kindness of friends in lending books and procuring data, I have been enabled to carry out my purpose, however imperfectly it may have been done. And I wish now to thank them for their assistance : more especially. Col. Henry Powell, of Henderson, Kentucky, who furnished me with the Congressional Records and Annals of Congress, belonging to his late honored father, Senator Lazarus W. Powell, without which I should have been unable to proceed at all ; Hon. Robert L. Wilson, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., who procured for me yiii Preface.

duplicates of valuable papers lost in the burning of my residence; Hon. Wm. Wirt Henry, of Richmond, Va., through whose kindness I obtained the Act of Virginia, of 1788, found in the Appendix ; the Rev. R. M. Hayes, who sent me the data of the Methodist Conference of 1849 ; Vice-President Stevenson and the late Hon. Daniel Voorhees, to whose courtesy I was indebted for the permission of the Senate to have a copy made of Mr. Dixon's motion for the Repeal of the Act of 1820, made January 16, 1854 ; Justice John M. Harlan, who sent me some volumes from Washington City that were indispensable ; Hon. Micajah Woods, of Charlottesville, Va., for autograph letter of Mr. Clay, hitherto unpublished ; also Hon. Geo. Yeaman, of New York, Hon. Wm. Wirt Henry, Hon. John W. Lockett and Major John J. Reeve, of Henderson, Ky., who were most kindly critics, and offered suggestions of the greatest value.

It has been with me not only a labor of love, but of the deepest interest in the subject which so broadened and deepened with the study of it as to include far more than one set of men or measures.

Should the following pages succeed in establishing the simple truth of history, which is far more valuable than rounded periods or high-sounding phrases, such success will be a sufficient reward for all the time and labor expended on them, and the Author's aim will have been accomplished. Susan Bullitt Dixon.

Chapter I

Slavery under the Constitution— Slaves first brought to the "Western Hemisphere by Spain— American Colonies all owned slaves — Patrick Henry bitterly opposed to slavery— Three-fifths representation—Fugitive slave law— Continuance of the slave trade under the Constitution for a period of twenty years— General Washington's account of the "bargain" by which this was eflected, and the "two-thirds vote" measure defeated— Mr. Madison's record of the proceedings— All of the Southern States but two opposed to the bargain , 1

Chapter II

Ordinance of 1787, by which slavery was prohibited in the North-western Territory ceded by Virginia to the United States- Virginia's assent to the ordinance — Her motives — Explanation of inconsistency in the prohibition of slavery by the Congi-ess of 1787 and the continuance of the slave trade by the Constitutional Convention of 1787— Louisiana purchased— Treaty of purchase protects all rights of inhabitants— Sectional jealousies —Letters of Adams and Jefferson- Great Britain's plot to procure the secession of New England, the moving cause of the war of 1812-Y-The Missouri difficulty begins in 1819— Mr. Clay, Speaker of the House, casts the deciding vote against territorial restriction in Arkansas 23

Chapter III

lS19-'20— Act of 1820, commonly called "The Missouri Compromise,"- Prohibition of slavery north of 36° 3(K offered by Mr. Thomas, of Illinois, as an offset to the admission of Missouri with her slave property into the Union— Intense excitement over the whole country— Proposition accepted as the only way to prevent disruption of the Union— Half of the Southern (and most distinguished) members of the House vote against it as

being unconstitutional and unjust. , 54

(ix)

Contents.

Chapter IV

1821— Missouri not permitted to enter the Union under the Act of / 1820— Rejected by the Northern majority on a mere pretext • — Disunion again strongly threatened — Business interests completely prostrated — Conditions most alarming — Missouri at last admitted under a new act proposed by Mr. Clay 91

Chapter IX

1845-1849— Texas admitted to the Union— Origin of the war with Mexico— Gen. Taylor elected President in 1848— Victorious "Whig Party and Administration face the momentous question of division of territory acquired from Mexico — Wilmot Proviso — Clayton Compromise — Oregon— Boundaries of Texas, New Mexico, and California— Mr. Calhoun's Southern Address 175

Chapter X

1849— Mr. Clay's Emancipation Letter, February, 1849 — Decadence of the Whig Party in Kentucky — Archibald Dixon opposes emancipation in the Constitutional Convention of the State — It is defeated in the new Constitution 200

Contents. xi

Chapter XI

1850— " Compromifle of 1860," so-called— President Taylor's position—Democratic Speaker elected— Extract from speech of Mr. Clemens — Mr. Seward's Abolitionism— Southern sentiment as to Abolition and Secession — Mr. Clay's Eesolutions — Extracts from his speeches — He denies the authorship of the line of 36° 30^, known as the Missouri Compromise line — At the close of his great speech of February 6th, advocating Union, Mr. Hale presents a petition to dissolve the Union 225

Chapter XII

1850 — Bell's Resolutions — Foote's Committee of Thirteen — Extract from Mr. Calhoun's last Speech — From Mr. Webster's Eloquent and Celebrated Speech of March 7th — Cass — Douglas — Foote — Mr. Calhoun's Death 282

Chapter XIII

1850 — Petition to arm slaves presented by Mr. Seward — Rejected by Senate — Identity of position of Clay and Douglas on Non-intervention — Douglas author of the bills known as the " Compromise of 1850," advocated by Mr. Clay, and commonly attributed to him — Mr. Clay's arraignment of the President — Mr. Bell's defense of him — Death of President Taylor 312

Chapter XIV

1850— Mr. Clay on Abolition, Disunion, Secession and Non-intervention — California admitted — Utah and New Mexico given Territorial Governments — Texas Boundary Bill passed — Also Fugitive Slave Law — Abolition of Slave Trade in District of Columbia— Seward proposes amendment — Defeated — Clay, Benton, Winthrop, Douglas and others 348

Chapter XV

1851-'52— Division and defeat of the Whig Party in Kentucky in 1851 — Archibald Dixon elected Senator, December 30th, vice Henry Clay, resigned — Division and disintegration of the National Whig Party in 1852— Death of Henry Clay 386 xii Contents.

Chapter XIX

1854 — Chase's amendment— He attacks President Pierce and Mr. Douglas in his speech — Extracts from speeches of Hon. Archibald Dixon, Gov. Jones (of Tennessee), Hon. Ben. Wade (of Ohio), and Hon. Wm. H. Seward (of New York) 487

Chapter XX

1854 — The Repeal under consideration — Mr. Badger (of North Carolina) makes a statement to the Senate — Dixon and Chase — Debate of March 2d and 3d — Mr. Badger's amendment — Douglas' great speech — Kansas-Nebraska bill finally passed. May 25th — Was signed by President Pierce, May 30th 512

Chapter XXI

After the Repeal — Historical mistakes in regard to it — Mr. Seward's alleged misstatement as to its origin and purpose — Hon. Montgomery Blair's letter to Mr, Secretary Welles— Henry C. Whitney's version — Letters from Hon. Robert L. Wilson and Thos. E. McCreery— Mr. Dixon's letter to the St. Louis Republican denying Mr. Seward's statement contained in the Blair letter — Major Whitney's version shown to be incorrect and altogether illogical— Letter from Hon. John C. Bullitt 585

THE TRUE HISTORY

OF

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

AND ITS REPEAL.

Chapter I

Slavery under the Constitution — Slaves first brought to the Western Hemisphere by Spain — American Colonies all owned slaves — Patrick Henry bitterly opposed to slavery — Three-fifths representation — Fugitive slave law — Continuance of the slave trade under the Constitution for a period of twenty years — General Washington's account of the " bargain " by which this was effected, and the " two-thirds vote " measure defeated — Mr. Madison's record of the proceedings — All of the Southern States but two opposed to the bargain.

The Act of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise, was the first surrender of the great vital principle of political equality between the States of the American Union, and the first authorized demarkation of a sectional line between them ; this line was drawn by Congress itself, was its first interference with the rights of the people of the States in the Territories of the United States, and was an exercise by Congress of powers not delegated to that body under the Constitution.

The Repeal of that Act (or, rather, a portion of it) , in 1854, meant a restoration of that lost equality, the elimination of that line and of sectionalism ; the restoration to the people of their just rights, and the annulment of that arbitrary exercise of power ; and was dictated by the loftiest patriotism and the purest love of

country.

The history of the Missouri Compromise includes the cause of the late war between the States.

That cause was slavery.

Darkly and in bold relief it stands out in the records of the past hundred years as the point whence all sectional animosities arose, and upon which all sectional jealousies and hatreds were concentred.

This Gordian Knot of the nineteenth century could, perhaps, only have been cut, as it was, by the sword, for several reasons : in the first place, the South never saw the day when she would have surrendered her property to force without a fight, and the Northern people were never willing for the government to pay the South for her slaves in order to their deportation and freedom — every proposition to that effect being rejected by the Northern majority in Congress, even though made by Northern members. It was, moreover, a question of land, for which the Anglo-Saxon race will always fight. The South wanted the territory from which she had been unjustly excluded by act of Congress, as a place of exodus for her surplus blacks, whose increase was daily becoming more and more a burden ; whilst the North wanted the fertile fields of the South, from which her people were excluded by the existence of slave labor as effectually as though by act of Congress, for the maintenance of her surplus white population which was increasing every year by the thousands, owing to foreign emigration. And last, but not least, the political equality of the States became a point of honor with the South, as well as a means of self-preservation, for which her people preferred to fight, even if they lost, rather than to surrender it tamely and without a struggle.

Some very distinguished and able men have expressed the belief that, as Alexander Stephens said, "slavery was only an incident of the war," and not the cause of it. But this appears to the writer to be a mistaken view. It would seem, on the contrary, that slavery had hitherto been the only question of difference between the States that could have brought on the war — as it is the only one that involved the rights of property, the possession of territory, the principle of the equal rights of the States, and was sectional in its character, dividing the nation into two separate geographical divisions.

Slavery was not a matter of choice with the American people. Bequeathed to them in their infancy, it cast its shadow upon their very cradle. Had King George III., in the plentitude of his power, desired, like some wicked Fairy of old, to curse with a fatal gift the fair child of Liberty, he could have chosen nothing more sure, more deadly, than this.

To appreciate properly the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise itself and the relation of its subject. Slavery, to the Constitution of the United States must first be understood.

The colonies had all owned slaves. An almost immemorial custom, it was not then viewed with the abhorrence which has since become its portion. But the sentiment of their best people was decidedly against it, and protest after protest, especially from Virginia, against the further introduction of slaves went up to his majesty of England, but in vain ; for King George derived a handsome revenue from the products of slave labor, and moreover regarded slavery as an element of weakness calculated to keep the Colonies in subjection to his rule.

The early colonists, more especially in Massachusetts, had attempted to make slaves of the Indians ; but found them entirely unsuited to their purposes, being irreclaimably opposed to either work or submission.

It was at the suggestion, in about the year 1517, of a kind and well-meaning Catholic priest, Bartholomew Las Casas, that the regular commerce in African negroes began. He was engaged in the work of converting the Indians of the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, many of whom had been forced into a state of slavery by their Spanish captors, and compelled to labor in the mines of Cuba, and Hispaniola (or St, Domingo) } In pity for them and to ameliorate their sufferings, he proposed that the negroes from Africa be substituted for the Indians whose souls he was trying to save. (The souls of the negroes appear to have been a secondary consideration with the good priest.) The negroes stood captivity and slavery so much better than the Indians, who rapidly pined away and died under those condi-

* " The impossibility of carrying on any improvement in America, unless the Spanish planters could command the labor of the natives, was an insuperable objection to his plan of treating them as free subjects. In order to provide some remedy for this, without which, he found it was in vain to mention his scheme. Las Casas proposed to purchase a sufficient number of negroes from the Portuguese settlements on the coast of Africa, and to transport them to America, in order that they might be employed as slaves in working the mines and cultivating the ground. One of the first advantages which the Portuguese had derived from their discoveries in Africa, arose from the trade in slaves. Various circumstances concurred in reviving this odious commerce, which had been long abolished in Europe, and which is no less repugnant to the feelings of humanity, than to the principles of religion. As early as the year one thousand five hundred and three, a few negro slaves had been sent into the New World. In the year one thousand five hundred and eleven, Ferdinand permitted the importation of them in greater numbers. They were found to be a more robust and hardy race than the natives of America. They were more capable of enduring fatigue, more patient under servitude, and the labor of one negro was computed to be equal to that of four Indians. Cardinal Ximenes, however, when solicited to encourage this commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition, because he perceived the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery, while he was consulting about the means of restoring liberty to another. But Las Casas from the inconsistency natural to men who hurry with headlong impetuosity toward a favorite point, was incapable of making this distinction. While he contended earnestly for the liberty of the people born in one quarter of the globe, he labored to enslave the inhabitants of another region ; and in the warmth of his zeal to save the Americans from the yoke, pronounced it to be lawful and expedient to impose one still heavier upon the Africans. Unfortunately for the latter, Las Casas's plan was adopted. Charles granted a patent to one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right of importing four thousand negroes into America. The favorite sold his patent to some Genoese merchants for twenty-five thousand ducats, and they were the first who brought into a regular form that commerce for slaves between Africa and America, which has since been carried on to such an amazing extent." — (Wm. Robertson, History of America, Vol. 1, page 310-12.)

tions, and were besides so much more docile and submissive than the Indians, that they were brought over in large numbers, first to the West Indies and Spanish Colonies of South America, and then to the North American Colonies ; to the Northern or Eastern as well as the Middle and Southern Colonies. But the negroes, from their lack of acclimation probably, proved to be very worthless laborers in the colder regions of the North, and the greater part of them gradually drifted to the more Southern Colonies where the climate ^ was better suited to them.

With the dawning of intellectual and religious freedom

1 And now, after all the years, taking a purely philosophical view of the question, is it not possible that climatic differences may have been really responsible for the war between the states? They evidently had primarily a vast influence in creating the difference in institutions between the North and South. Fundamentally, slavery was the result of greed and selfishness. There is certainly nothing to indicate that human selfishness was more lacking in the North than in the South, and there was necessarily a stronger reason than any moral one which made a sectional line of demarkation between slave and free territory. Had climatic influences been the same, had the slaves whom the Northern States so largely assisted to import from Africa, regardless of the question of morality, proved as profitable an investment in those states as they were in the South, is it not at least probable that slavery would have been universal in our country ? Would not the Northern people have felt that employment of the African savage in labor of a kind which no white man could stand, but for which his constitution and previous climatic surroundings peculiarly fitted him, was entirely justifiable on the ground of necessity? Would they not have believed that the civilization of American slavery was really preferable for this savage over the slavery of benighted barbarism and cannibalism in which he dwelt? Would they not have claimed his civilization and Christianization as high moral and religious results of his subjugation and deportation from his native land? That they did not receive the same revenue from slave labor in the North as in the South, is probably the genuine reason, as the economic one, for its rejection by them. That the failure of the negro as a source of revenue to his Northern master was due to his lack of acclimatization, was rendered very apparent by the contrast between the just-arrived Dahomey negroes who sat shivering in midsummer at the World's Fair in Chicago, 1893, and the acclimatized American negro who has been spreading himself throughout the North so regardless of climate that he may in time be expected to perhaps rout the Esquimaux from the North Pole, and chase the polar bear from the frozen seas of the Artie regions.

upon the world had also, however, arisen the idea that personal slavery was wrong ; that the enslavement of one man by another, for his own benefit, was an infringement of the rights of man ; but, like all new ideas, this opinion was held mainly by the advanced thinkers of the day, and had scarcely yet permeated the masses.

Whilst the struggle for Independence from Great Britain was coming on, the feeling against African slavery was growing too, in the American Colonies, and nowhere was this feeling stronger than in Virginia among all the better classes of people.

In a letter written by Patrick Henry to a correspondent who sent him Anthony Benezet's book against the slave trade, after expressing his "wonder that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages," he says :

"Would any one believe I am the master of slaves of my own purchase ! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I can not justify it ... I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Every thing we can do is to improve it if it happens in our day ; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery. . . . I could say many things on this subject, a serious view of which gives a gloomy perspective to future times."

This letter was written in 1773 (see Vol. 1, p. 152, Wm. Wirt Henry's Life of Patrick Henry), and in 1774, in an address of the "Freeholders of Hanover County" to Patrick Henry and John Syme, their delegates to the Virginia Convention which met August 1st at Williamsburgh to appoint her delegates to the first Continental Congress, we find the following as a part of their instructions :

"The African trade for slaves we consider as most dangerous to the virtue and welfare of this country ; we therefore most earnestly wish to see it totally discouraged." (Idem, p. 193.)

But the negro, with all his indolent, shiftless ways — though so unprofitable in the cold climate of the North as to be not only not a success there as a pecuniary investment, but, instead, an incubus on society — yet, when transferred to the warmer climate of the South, had become a useful laborer and a valuable member of the community. The exports from the Southern Colonies had made them far more wealthy than were the Northern, and these exports were the products of slave labor. ^ So that however opposed the Southern Colonists might be to slavery in sentiment, their interests were all bound up in this labor which had opened their forests and drained their swamps, which had found health where the Anglo-Saxon would have found only a grave, and which had become, from a race of most ignorant barbarians, under the teachings and control of their American masters, contented, useful, and happy as any laboring class in the world.

The interests of the Northern Colonists meantime were entirely divorced from slave labor ; they were turning their attention to fisheries, to commerce, to navigation, and whatever promised them some increase of their wealth. Among other articles of commerce, they carried on a considerable trade in African slaves, for whom they found a ready market in the South, whose fertile lands were not yet by any means all opened up to cultivation.

With such diverse interests, with such totally different systems of labor and habits of life, it is not wonderful that it was a difficult thing for these Colonies to form a Union ; and they probably would never have done so, but for the strong outside pressure from Great Britain which impelled them to unite for self-protection. With their very birth then as Confederated States, there

^ They also owned three times as much territory previous to Virginia's cession of the North-western Territory.— The Author.

arose between them that mighty conflict of interest and opinion which less than a century later culminated in the greatest Civil War the world has ever known.

It is a matter of interest to mark, and of philosophy to note, that this giant contest grew, as most contests do, out of the ever-recurring, never-to-be-settled, question of dollars and cents.

After the independence of the Colonies had been declared, in 1776, the next step was to maintain it. Taxes were apportioned to the States for this purpose, based on the value of their lands, instead of the numbers of their inhabitants, as at first proposed, because of the impossibility of getting the Eastern (or Northern) and Southern States to agree as to the relative value of the slaves as inhabitants — the South contending that ' ' they ought not to be taxed equally with the white laborers of the North for two reasons. A white man would do three times as much work as a negro, so one white man ought to count for as much as three negroes ; and further, it would be manifestly unjust to tax the South for her negroes when they were property"— "you had as well include the cattle of the Northern farmer as the negroes of the Southern planter — ^you would be taxing the South doubly, on her numbers and on her wealth conjointly." * The Northern men, on the other hand, claiming that "your laborers are inhabitants, be they slaves or freemen, and add equally to the wealth of tlie country, and should therefore be equally included in any rule of taxation." ^

Owing to this irreconcilable difference of opinion it was then decided to make the value of the lands the basis of the taxes ; but in 1783, finding these values so fluctuating and uncertain as to be very unsatisfactory. Congress determined to base the taxes on the numbers of inhabitants, as being the only available plan. Again, all the arguments were gone over, pro and con; when

* See Mr. Madison's papers.— Notes of the Convention. ' Idem.

finally, Mr. Madison proposed, as a compromise, that, in the census which should be taken to determine the number of inhabitants for taxation, five negroes should be counted as three white men. This proposition passed, and when, in 1787, the representation of the States in Congress was under consideration by the Constitutional Convention, it was agreed to adopt this rule of taxation, as also the rule of representation,^ it being alleged as the reason for it that a people should be represented in proportion as they are taxed, and vice versa.

In the course of these debates, it came out very strongly that when the negro was to be taxed the North rated him very highly, and the South very low ; but when he was to be represented, it was the South that valued him at a very high rate, and the North correspondingly low. The vice versa aspect of difference in opinion on these points is almost amusing to the reader of the discussions which are recorded in Mr. Madison's Notes of the Convention.