would be less fatal," should have not only consented to draw up the Virginia Resolutions of '98, but should have also agreed to be the draftsman, one year later, of an elaborate report prepared expressly for the purpose of explaining and enforcing these same resolutions. It is true that in after life he disavowed any intention on this occasion to yield his sanction either to nullification or secession, and I have certainly no inclination either to call in question the sincerity of this eminent personage, or to accuse him of gross forgetfulness as to the operations of his own clear and well-balanced intellect; but I repeat that the language of his resolutions, as well as those drawn by Mr. Jefferson, as already noticed, must be regarded as inculcating all the perilous doctrines now recognized as specially appertaining to the South Carolina school of politicians. However objectionable these doctrines may be in practice, I am not aware that their promulgation, at the close of the last century, in the manner described, had the effect of calling into action feelings of sectional jealousy, or of impressing upon the public mind in either section sentiments of acerbity, alienation, or distrust. It is indeed probable that the effect of the excit ing struggle for political ascendency in 1801 was chiefly to cause the depositories of Federal power to be a little more on their guard against the perpetration of encroachments on the reserved rights of the states and people than they might otherwise have been, and that, in point of fact, it may in this way have contributed rather to prevent than to instigate collisions calculated to endanger the domestic peace.

I can not well refrain from remarking here, in passing,

STATES-RIGHT THEORY REPUDIATED AT RICHMOND. 49

that, during the four years just elapsed, the Southern States of the Union have had the most conclusive evidence supplied to them, and in forms eminently impressive in every way, of the utter futility and worthlessness of all the ultra states-rights governmental theories; since, in less than a twelve-month after a Constitution had been agreed upon at Montgomery, framed especially with a view to indicating the intention of its framers to set forth and promulgate to all the world a "compact among sovereign states," to which compact each of said states should be recognized as having "acceded as a state, its co-states forming, as to itself, the other party;" providing, too, that the "government created" by said compact should not be "the exclusive or final judge of the extent of powers delegated to itself;" and providing still farther, that "as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party" should have "a right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and manner of redress;" since, I repeat, in less than a twelve-month after this same boasted states-right Constitution was put in operation, its very framers notoriously, and in spite of all remonstrances, succeeded in consolidating all governmental power in the central agency at Richmond, and, upon the stale plea of military necessity, shamelessly trod under foot all the reserved rights of the states and people, and organized an irresponsible military despotism in the very bosom of the Ancient Dominion, as harsh and grinding in its character as has ever heretofore existed in any age of the world. On this subject I shall in due season bring forward such damning evidences as will profoundly shock the sensibilities of all

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the friends of orderly and well-regulated government, and all the honest upholders of true constitutional liberty.

Of the intermediate period which elapsed between the inauguration of Mr. Jefferson as President, on the 4th of March, 1801, and the year 1819, when the celebrated Missouri question shook the republic to its centre, I have only to observe that, with the exception of the period of excitement which intervened when the Embargo measure was upon its trial, and the war of 1812 with Great Britain was in progress, the country, and every portion of it, enjoyed an almost halcyon repose. However fierce may have been the denunciations of the Embargo policy in certain quarters, as well in Congress as out of it, whatever insane and indecent menaces may have been fulminated by Hartford Convention zealots, and others of a similar complexion, the tranquillity of the republic was at no time dangerously disturbed; the waves of popular excitement were again and quickly calmed into a state of complete serenity, and all angry and unkind feeling was seen once more to disappear. Never were any people in the enjoyment of a more happy, and, to all appearance, a more assured state of domestic quietude than were. our honored fellow-countrymen on the 4th of March, 1817. This period of our history is borne in pleasant recollection by persons who still survive, and continues, to some extent, yet to be referred to by them as the era of good feeling."

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But soon came the Missouri struggle, that "fire-bell of the night," as Mr. Jefferson figuratively entitles it. Upon this oft-discussed topic I shall here only hazard a few suggestions, and gladly would I refrain from alluding to

MISSOURI STRUGGLE.

51

it altogether, could I do so consistently with the faithful execution of the task which I have assumed. The historic details which belong to this famous contest are already, indeed, sufficiently well known to most of those who may glance over these pages, and recent occurrences have rendered it altogether impossible for men even of ordinary intelligence to avoid some little acquaintance with them.

The principal facts are capable of being concisely stated as follows: The people of the Missouri Territory, in the early part of the year 1818, memorialized Congress for its admission into the Federal Union as a state. This memorial was at first favorably received, and a bill for the admission of the new state was quickly reported to the House of Representatives from the appropriate committee in that body. There was not sufficient time for the bill to become a law before Congress adjourned, to meet again in the month of November of the same year, when the measure of admission was taken up for consideration. An amendment thereto was now offered by a representative of the State of New York, providing against "the introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude" in said territory after it should have become a state, and had been admitted into the Federal Union as such. This restriction was incorporated with the bill in the House, and the bill as amended was sent to the Senate for its consideration. The latter body struck out the restrictive amendment, and adopted the bill as a simple act of admission.

In the form which it had thus assumed in the Senate the bill again made its appearance in the House, when a

motion for its indefinite postponement having failed,. upon the question which then arose of concurrence in the territorial amendment, a small negative majority was the result, and the bill, embodying again the restriction mentioned, a second time reached the Senate, when, the latter body insisting upon its amendment, it was once more sent back to the House, where a motion that the House should adhere to its vote of disagreement prevailed. Missouri was not, therefore, then admitted. Again the measure was brought forward in the Congress which commenced its session in December, 1819. After much altercation in both Houses, and various movements of cu rious political adroitness not needful to be here specified, with an intense excitement ever on the increase alike in Congress and in the whole country, a compromise, as it was called, was finally agreed upon, whereby the State of Missouri was given admission as a slave state, with its territorial extent limited to the North by the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude; and in all the remaining territory belonging to the government of the country acquired by purchase from France in the year 1803, slavery or involuntary servitude was forever prohibited.

Such is the substance of the celebrated Missouri Compromise, devised by able statesmen and devoted patriots nearly a half century ago, for the purpose of saving the republic itself from ruin then most seriously menaced. And who shall now censure this wise and noble act, which restored peace once more to a disturbed country, and perchance averted the horrors of war as fierce and terrible as that which we of the present generation have just so painfully realized?