First of all, slavery is evil period. But in this blog post, I put myself in the shoes of a Virginia Congressman who explains his position on the Compromise of 1820 as one on the side of constitutional principles regarding states' rights. Congressman John Tyler would not "not yield an inch of ground to any power on earth". To fully understand the struggle, we must view all sides. The compromise of course passed and was signed by Monroe. The can was kicked further down the road, and in 1821 when Missouri was finally admitted, Monroe proclaimed that "the laws had their due operation and effect".
When Missouri requested to be admitted to the Union as a slave state, the tensions between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the Congress and across the country reached a boiling point. For some it was a fight over the expansion of slavery, but for many the fight was over the balance of power between the slave-holding states and their northern and northwestern counterparts. The slave holding states took the position that Congress would be overstepping their powers by restricting slavery in the Missouri territories. President James Monroe, who was born in the slave-holding state of Virginia favored states' rights, but did little or nothing to interfere as Congress debated the issue.
Now, I have quite often written about the evils of slavery, but too often we fail to understand the other issues at hand. We so often let the cloud of slavery choke out the argument about states' rights. Perhaps if we put ourselves into the shoes of a Virginia Congressman from Virginia in 1820. John Tyler, a Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Congressman from Virginia wrote a letter to the Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to explain his concerns that Congress was trampling on states' rights if they restricted slavery in Missouri. To help us walk in his shoes, I will dissect an excerpt of his letter.
Congressman John Tyler refers to the Missouri Compromise Debate as "The great question which now agitates the nation". It was a question that was sure to arouse strong feelings which would lead to increased power of the federal government and Congress over the states. Power that Tyler believed was unconstitutional. He described the situation. Both Maine and Missouri had applied for admission into the Union. The house passed a bill to admit Maine, but a committee group amended the bill by joining in with it a bill to admit Missouri as well. Because of the opposition from the anti-slavery faction in the house, it failed with most of the no votes coming from non-slave holding states. Finally a compromise was introduced by the Senate into the same bill adding a provision to extend the prohibition of slavery in territories north of a given degree latitude. It was passed by a majority in the Senate without any support from the slave holding states. And now, it was up to the House to pass the amended bill. But according to Tyler the fate of he bill in the House was much more uncertain. The advocates of restricting slavery would not vote for any bill which allowed Missouri to come into the union as a unrestricted slave state. As Tyler explained, advocates of unrestricted slavery believed, "as I do with almost all the South that the restriction on the Territories is unjust, not to say unconstitutional". As Tyler put it, the entire South would vote against the Bill containing the compromised provision.
In February of 1820, Congressman Tyler believed that in the end neither Missouri nor Main would be admitted. In fact, Tyler figured that is was all just a game. Once the bill failed, there will be a joint resolution passed in both the house and the senate that would restrict slavery, not only the territories north of Missouri, but Missouri itself and even Arkansas. Yet, Tyler remained hopeful that President Monroe would not support such a "regulation of this character". In the end, Tyler feared that Missouri would not become a state in this or the next session, and speaking candidly he wrote that "I believe that she will for the next ten years by the voluntary assent of the North and NorthWest unless she will abandon the struggle for sovereignty and submit to conditions". In other words, Tyler felt that the non slave holding states who now held the majority were keeping Missouri hostage until she abandoned her request to be admitted as a slave holding state. For Tyler, this was not a matter of slave versus free, but rather one of constitutional principles for which "nothing earthly shall shake him or cause him to waver". Tyler then finished with these words: "For myself permit me to add that I have planted myself on the constitution and the principles of right, and that I will not yield an inch of ground to any power on earth. A crisis like the present requires stout hearts and resolute minds, and altho' we may regret the approach of the storm, it becomes us to meet it like men." As we look back, too often our perception is clouded by the evils of slavery, but for John Tyler it was not about slavery, but rather the principles of states' rights as outlined in the constitution.
Nevertheless, President James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. In addition, the compromised provision also passed, prohibiting slavery north of the 36-degrees-30-minutes latitude line. On March 6, James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, but the question on the final admission of Missouri did not come up until the next session. In 1821, there was another question which came up regarding the Missouri constitution requiring the exclusion of "free negroes and mulattos". Henry Clay, the Kentucky Senator brokered another compromise that included a condition that the Missouri constitution also include a clause that no laws should ever be passed with impaired the privileges and immunities of any U.S. citizens. The law as ambiguous enough to get a majority vote, and on August 10, 1821 Missouri entered the union as the twenty-fourth state. The compromise passed, but the tension that Tyler felt did not ease. Whether the slave holding states fought to protect the institution of slavery, or whether they fought to preserve states' rights, the nation remained divided along territorial and ideological lines.
Given the intensity of the debate, you would think that President Monroe would have dedicated a large portion of his 1820 or 1821 State of the Union Address to this debate. But there is none, except a small portion of his introduction of his 1821 address, stating that regarding the internal laws of our nation, "there is good cause to be satisfied with the result. The laws have had their due operation and effect." Here the opening excerpt from Monroe's 1821 State of the Union address.
"The progress of our affairs since the last session has been such as may justly be claimed and expected under a Government deriving all its powers from an enlightened people, and under laws formed by their representatives, on great consideration, for the sole purpose of promoting the welfare and happiness of their constituents. In the execution of those laws and of the powers vested by the Constitution in the Executive, unremitted attention has been paid to the great objects to which they extend.I can't say for certain, that Monroe was speaking of the Missouri Compromise and the admission of Missouri as a state, but if I were in the shoes of Congressman John Tyler, that is probably how I would read it. And, yes this same Congressman from Virginia John Tyler would go on to become our tenth president, serving from 1841 to 1845 just 5 years before the next big compromise between the free and slave states.
In the concerns which are exclusively internal there is good cause to be satisfied with the result. The laws have had their due operation and effect."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29463
http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=33108
http://www.history.com/topics/missouri-compromise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Compromise
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/august-10
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/US_SlaveFree1821.gif
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