Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 | Page 6

Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in
the Constitution.--Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries.
--Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.--
Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.--State of
Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.--
Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission of
Missouri to the Union.--The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820 and

1821.--Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.--Struggle over
the Right of Petition.
The compromises on the Slavery question, inserted in the Constitution,
were among the essential conditions upon which the Federal
Government was organized. If the African slave-trade had not been
permitted to continue for twenty years, if it had not been conceded that
three-fifths of the slaves should be counted in the apportionment of
representatives in Congress, if it had not been agreed that fugitives
from service should be returned to their owners, the Thirteen States
would not have been able in 1787 "to form a more perfect union."
These adjustments in the Constitution were effected after the Congress
of the old Confederation had dedicated the entire North-west Territory
to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of Virginia had, for the good of
all, generously and patriotically surrendered her title to the great
country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, which to-day
constitutes five prosperous and powerful States and a not
inconsiderable portion of a sixth. This was the first territory of which
the General Government had exclusive control, and the prompt
prohibition of slavery therein by the Ordinance of 1787 is an important
and significant fact. The anti-slavery restriction would doubtless have
been applied to the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to
impose it. The founders of the government not only looked to the
speedy extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the idea of a
geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, and slavery
established on the other. But the territory south of the Ohio belonged to
the Southern States of the Union,--Kentucky to Virginia; Tennessee to
North Carolina; Alabama and Mississippi to Georgia, with certain
co-extensive claims put forth by South Carolina. When cessions of this
Southern territory were made to the General Government, the States
owning it exacted in every case a stipulation that slavery should not be
prohibited. It thus came to pass that the Ohio River was the
dividing-line. North of it freedom was forever decreed. South of it
slavery was firmly established. Within the limits of the Union as
originally formed the slavery question had therefore been compromised,
the common territory partitioned, and the Republic, half slave, half free,
organized and sent forth upon its mission.

The Thirteen States whose independence had been acknowledged by
George III., occupied with their outlying territories a vast area,
exceeding in the aggregate eight hundred thousand square miles.
Extended as was this domain, the early statesmen of the Union
discovered that its boundaries were unsatisfactory,--hostile to our
commercial interests in time of peace, and menacing our safety in time
of war. The Mississippi River was our western limit. On its farther
shore, from the Lake of the Woods to the Balize, we met the flag of
Spain. Our southern border was the 31st parallel of latitude; and the
Spanish Floridas, stretching across to the Mississippi, lay between us
and the Gulf of Mexico. We acquired from Spain the right of deposit
for exports and imports at New Orleans, but the citizens of the Union
who lived west of the Alleganies were discontented and irritated to find
a foreign power practically controlling their trade by intercepting their
access to the sea. One of the great problems imposed upon the founders
of the Union was to remove the burdens and embarrassments which
obstructed the development of the Western States, and thus to render
their inhabitants as loyal by reason of material prosperity as they
already were in patriotic sympathy. The opportunity for relief came
from remote and foreign causes, without our own agency; but the
courageous statesmanship which discerned and grasped the opportunity,
deserved, as it has received, the commemoration of three generations.
The boundaries of the Union were vastly enlarged, but the geographical
change was not greater than the effect produced upon the political and
social condition of the people. The ambitions developed by the
acquisition of new territory led to serious conflicts of opinion between
North and South,--conflicts which steadily grew in intensity until, by
the convulsion of war, slavery was finally extinguished.
TERRITORIAL CESSIONS IN AMERICA.
A great European struggle, which ended twelve years before our
Revolution began, had wrought important changes in the political
control of North America. The Seven Years' War, identical in time with
the French and Indian War in America, was closed in 1763 by
numerous treaties to which every great power in Europe