It was
clearly shown in debate that such considerations were altogether
irrelevant; that the number of existing slaves would not be affected by
their removal from the older States to Missouri; and, moreover, that the
proposed restriction would be contrary to the spirit, if not to the
letter, of the Constitution.[7] Notwithstanding all this, the
restriction was adopted, by a vote almost strictly sectional, in the
House of Representatives. It failed in the Senate through the firm
resistance of the Southern, aided by a few patriotic and conservative
Northern, members of that body. The admission of the new State, without
any restriction, was finally accomplished by the addition to the bill of
a section for ever prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the
Louisiana Territory lying north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes, north latitude, except Missouri--by implication leaving the
portion south of that line open to settlement either with or without
slaves.
This provision, as an offset to the admission of the new State without
restriction, constituted the celebrated Missouri Compromise. It was
reluctantly accepted by a small majority of the Southern members. Nearly
half of them voted against it, under the conviction that it was
unauthorized by the Constitution, and that Missouri was entitled to
determine the question for herself, as a matter of right, not of bargain
or concession.
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