MISSOURI COMPROMISE, the proviso contained in the bill admitting Missouri into the union, Feb. 28, 1821. Up to the time when the bill for the admission of Missouri was brought before congress in the session of 1818-19, an equal number of slave-holding and non-slave-holding states had been admitted„ Vermont, Ohio;. Indiana, and Illinois had balanced lientbcky,' Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi'. After Alabama was allowed to become a state, without prohibiting slavery, and the bill for the admission of the territory of Missouri was introduced, Talimadge, member of congress from New York, moved an amendment, which was passed by a vole of 87 to 76, prohibiting the further importation of slaves, and emancipating slave children when they should reach the age of 25. A few days afterwards Taylor of New York, by way of compromise, proposed to amend the bill setting off Arkansas into a territory, by a proviso that slavery should not be extended to any part of the territory ceded by Fiance to this country n. of 36° 80' lat. His amendment met with bitter opposition from both northern and southern members, and was withdrawn. The opponents of slavery claimed that the question had been settled by the ordinance of 1767, which, in creating a government for the Northwest territory, provided that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory otherwise than in punishment for crime." They maintained that the United States did not recognize slave property, whatever might be the laws of certain states; and they urged the authority of Jefferson, who had introduced a bill, in 1784, prohibiting slavery in the territory of the United States, and in such territory as might thereafter be annexed. The slave-holding members, on the other hand, maintained that congress had
no constitutional right to prohibit slavery in the territories, and that such a prohibition would violate the provision guaranteeing to the citizen the enjoyment. of his property. They declared that the south would go out of the union rather than submit to the pro posed restriction The senate disagreed with the house, and the bill failed to pass. Alabama was admitted in the session of 1819-20, and her admission was followed by that of Maine. _Meantime a strong public feeling against slavery had been growing in the middle states and in New England. In 1820 the Pennsylvania legislature resolved that congress had the right to prohibit slavery in the territories; and the legislatures of the other middle states, of Ohio and Indiana, passed resolutions to the same effect. The legislatures of the slave-bolding states, on the other hand, opposed any congressional restrictions upon slavery. When congress met, after a long debate the senate, largely through the efforts of Henry Clay, returned the Missouri bill to the house with the clause prohibiting slavery in that state stricken out, but with a new proviso that slavery should not thereafter he allowed n. of 30'. The house struck out the restricting clause by a vote of 90 to 87, and passed the compromise proviso by 134 to 42. The result was to postpone for a time the settlement of the slavery question. The compromise was virtu ally destroyed by the Kansas and Nebraska bills of 1854.