The Anti-Slavery Crusade | Page 7

of
Indiana in 1816 on the one side and of Mississippi in 1817 on the other
still maintained the balance: ten free States stood against ten slave
States. During the next two years Illinois and Alabama were admitted,
making twenty-two States in all, still evenly divided.
The ordinance for the government of the territory north of the Ohio
River, passed in 1787 and reenacted by Congress after the adoption of

the Constitution, proved to be an act of great significance in its relation
to the limitation of slavery. By this ordinance slavery was forever
prohibited in the Northwest Territory. In the territory south of the Ohio
River slavery became permanently established. The river, therefore,
became an extension of the original Mason and Dixon's Line with the
new meaning attached: it became a division between free and slave
territory.
It was apparently at first a mere matter of chance that a balance was
struck between the two losses of States. While Virginia remained a
slave State, it was natural that slavery should extend into Kentucky,
which had been a part of Virginia. Likewise Tennessee, being a part of
North Carolina, became slave territory. When these two Territories
became slave States, the equal division began. There was yet an
abundance of territory both north and south to be taken into the Union
and, without any special plan or agitation, States were admitted in pairs,
one free and the other slave. In the meantime there was distinctly
developed the idea of the possible or probable permanence of slavery in
the South and of a rivalry or even a future conflict between the two
sections.
When in 1819 Missouri applied for admission to the Union with a state
constitution permitting slavery, there was a prolonged debate over the
whole question, not only in Congress but throughout the entire country.
North and South were distinctly pitted against each other with rival
systems of labor. The following year Congress passed a law providing
for the admission of Missouri, but, to restore the balance, Maine was
separated from Massachusetts and was admitted to the Union as a State.
It was further enacted that slavery should be forever prohibited from all
territory of the United States north of the parallel 36 degrees 30', that is,
north of the southern boundary of Missouri. It is this part of the act
which is known as the Missouri Compromise. It was accepted as a
permanent limitation of the institution of slavery. By this act Mason
and Dixon's Line was extended through the Louisiana Purchase. As the
western boundary was then defined, slavery could still be extended into
Arkansas and into a part of what is now Oklahoma, while a great
empire to the northwest was reserved for the formation of free States.
Arkansas became a slave State in 1836 and Michigan was admitted as a
free State in the following year.

With the admission of Arkansas and Michigan, thirteen slave States
were balanced by a like number of free States. The South still had
Florida, which would in time become a slave State. Against this single
Territory there was an immense region to the northwest, equal in area
to all the slave States combined, which, according to the Ordinance of
1787 and the Missouri Compromise, had been consecrated to freedom.
Foreseeing this condition, a few Southern planters began a movement
for the extension of territory to the south and west immediately after
the adoption of the Missouri Compromise. When Arkansas was
admitted in 1836, there was a prospect of the immediate annexation of
Texas as a slave State. This did not take place until nine years later, but
the propaganda, the object of which was the extension of slave territory,
could not be maintained by those Who contended that slavery was a
curse to the country. Virginia, therefore, and other border slave States,
as they became committed to the policy of expansion, ceased to tolerate
official public utterances against slavery.
Three more or less clearly defined sections appear in the later
development of the crusade. These are the New England States, the
Middle States, and the States south of North Carolina and Tennessee.
In New England, few negroes were ever held as slaves, and the
institution disappeared during the first years of the Republic. The
inhabitants had little experience arising from actual contact with
slavery. When slavery disappeared from New England and before there
had been developed in the country at large a national feeling of
responsibility for its continued existence, interest in the subject
declined. For twenty years previous to the founding of Garrison's
Liberator in 1831, organized abolition movements had been almost
unknown in New England. In various ways the people were isolated,
separated from contact with slavery. Their knowledge of this subject of
discussion was academic, theoretical, acquired at second-hand.