SLAVERY. 



527 



It was foreseen that popular support in favor of 

 slavery could not be relied upon, unless the majority 

 had a stake iu its perpetuation, and this could only 

 be secured by its territorial expansion. 



In the meantime the sentiment hostile to the in- 

 stitution was passing toward definite crystallization, 

 liespect for the Constitution and for the rights of the 

 States under it retarded the action of causes that 

 looked to the elimination of slavery. The scheme 

 of colonizing the African in Africa, as means of pre- 

 paring the way for more energetic measures, was 

 conceived and put in course of execution, and the 

 colony of Liberia established on the West African 

 coast. The diflicnlties attending the emancipation 

 of the slaves, from the fact that they could neither 

 become assimilated with the populations of this 

 country in their new condition, nor find a refugo 

 suited to their condition elsewhere, was foreseen 

 and attempted to be guarded against by this expe- 

 dient. But the scheme of colonization failed to dis- 

 cover that the chief difficulty in the way of the eman- 

 cipation of the slave did not lie in the question of 

 his disposition after emancipation, but in the unwill- 

 ingness of his master to part with him. 



The ultimate disposal of the territory derived 

 from the Louisiana Purchase caused great agitation 

 as bearing upon the question of the extension of the 

 area devoted to slavery. Louisiana and Arkansas 

 were carved from this territory without precipitating 

 any serious conflict, as the institution had already 

 become firmly fixed upon them. The geographical 

 position of this region was recognized as creating a 

 political necessity that no interference should take 

 place with the condition of labor then existing 

 there. 



Missouri was admitted as a State in 1820, after a 

 conflict that tested the relative strength of the op- 

 posing factions. Missouri approached the southern 

 border of the region that antagonized slavery, and 

 brought the conflict to its doors. A long-continued 

 struggle between the parties seeking the admission 

 of Missouri as a slave State, and those who sought 

 to exclude from her limits that institution, ended in 

 the famous Missouri Compromise, by which slavery 

 was forever inhibited north of the line of 36 30', 

 except from the territory then constituted a* the 

 State of Missouri. The line of 36 30' corresponded 

 very nearly with the southern line of Missouri, so 

 that the allowance of slavery within that State was 

 an infraction of the uniformity of the geographical 

 partition between the free and the slave Status. 

 Thus Missouri became the northern boundary of 

 that part of the Union devoted to slavery that lay 

 if the Mississippi. Part of this compromise 

 was a provision for the return of fugitive slaves es- 

 caping into the free States, that was to be regarded 

 as n pledge binding the policy of those opposing the 

 institution. Indeed, the entire compromise was in- 

 tended to place the dispositions accomplished by it 

 upon the good faith of the respective parties that had 

 taken part in its enactment, for no one entertained 

 the idea that the constitutional powers of Congress 

 were in any way limited by it. 



The Missouri Compromise, sustained for thirty 

 years through the genius and labors of Webster, 

 Clay, and Calhoun, deferred the inevitable conflict 

 between the slave-holding and free regions, which 

 finally arose with the first serious infraction of 

 its provisions, until the Northern States had out- 

 stripped the Southern States in population and 

 wealth, and were able to maintain in arms the in- 

 dissoluble nature of our Union. 



This important step taken in 1820 appears to have 

 been the turning point in the development of the 

 opposition to the institution. The agitation in be- 

 half of the emancipation of the slaves throughout 

 the Union, and as a preliminary to that step the 



emancipation of the slaves within the territory that 

 constituted the seat of government, soon after the 

 event just referred to took on an organized form. In 

 1823 the first abolition convention met in Philadel- 

 phia. 



That which had existed as a humane sentiment 

 largely diffused through the free States began to 

 crystallize into a conviction and policy that fore- 

 shadowed an aggressive movement for the extirpa- 

 tion of the entire system of slavery. That which 

 had been nursed by humane sentiments struck its 

 roots deep into conceptions of the principles that 

 should govern the relations of mankind in^ their as- 

 sociations, and gave rise to utterances the intensity 

 of which expressed not only the depth of the con- 

 victions from which they arose, but the passionate re- 

 actions from the barriers whose strength resisted the 

 progress of the movement The Constitution of 



j the United States placed the internal economy of 



| the States beyond the control of Congress, and thus 

 the institution as it existed within the States could 

 not be reached by the national power, even if that 

 power could be wielded in the interest of free labor. 

 Within the District controlled by Congress this 

 power existed, but was in the hands of the partisans 

 of the slave system and their political friends of the 

 North. 



The policy of agitation was the only course open 

 to the advocates of emancipation, and that policy 

 was pursued with vigor and industry that was untir- 

 ing. 8]>ecchcs, pamphlets, appeals and petitions to 

 Congress for emancipation disseminated the ardent 

 thoughts and feelings of the advocates of freedom, 

 intended to fire the hearts of the people to a new 



I crusade. These utterances were not confined to the 

 people of the free States, but weie delivered in the 

 very midst of slavery and communicated through the 



1 press. Advocates of freedom were found with con- 

 victions so strong that they did not shrink from the 

 dangers that attended personal contact with thp ad- 

 herents of the slave system. Retaliatory violence 

 intensified the situation, firing the zeal of those who 

 acted from enthusiasm, and alarming the timid nnd 

 cautious. In Congress debate became altercation, 

 especially when petition after petition poured in 

 upon that body for some relief looking to the eman- 

 cipation of the slave. The right of petition to the 

 representatives of the people, that was part of our 

 inheritance from England, seemed for a time in 

 jeopardy. The threat of disunion came from the 

 slave-holding States in an undertone that produced 

 its effect upon many of the people of the Northern 



Slatl'H. 



The necessary consequence of such energetic 

 movements, in a form that many could not distin- 

 guish from incipient revolution, was to produce a 

 conservative reaction at the North, and to divide the 

 sentiment of that section, thus complicating the sit- 

 uation, and for a time retarding the progress" of tho 

 general feeling in favor of freedom to the slave. 

 Apprehension for the safety of the Union, respect 

 for the Constitution and the compromise that had at 

 least served the purpose of separating combatants' 

 who might otherwise have met in dangerous collision, 

 were part of the causes of a reactive tendency at tho 

 North, while political considerations looking to tho 

 solidity of party action had a large part in the re- 

 sult. 



In this instance, as often happens, the conserva- 

 tism of the North prevented the final issue of the 

 conflict from being the direct consequence of ag- 

 gressions on the part of the advocates of freedom, 

 and the disaster to the Union that might have fol- 

 lowed an aggressive policy of public action on the 

 part of the Northern States at that time. 



In the midst and heat of the conflict a train of 

 , causes was laid that tended by inevitable steps to the 



