The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1854-07-01

isiana, with constitution tolerating slave
ry, and the free States acquiesced. Eight
years afterward the region connected with
st. Louis demanded admission under the
name of the State of Missouri, with con-
stitution tolerating slavery. The free States
reverted to the principle of 1887, and op-
posed the admission of Missouri, unless she
would incorporate into her constitution an
inhibition of the further introduction of
slavery into the State. The slaveholding
States insisted upon her unqualified ad
mission. A controversy arose which was
sectional and embttered, and which, we are
assured by contemporaneous history seriously
imperlled the Union. The statesmen of
that day in Congress settled the controversy
by compromise. By the terms of this COM
promise the free States assented to the ad-
mission of Missouri with her slaveholding
constitution, while the slaveholding States
OH their part yielded the exclusion of slavery
in all the residue of the territory which lay
north of Sc deg. 30 min, constituting the
present territory of Kansas and Nebraska
The slaveholding States accepted the COM
promise as triumph, and the free States
have ever since left it undisturbed and un-
questioned. Arkansas, part of the terri
tory of Louisiana, which lay south of SO
deg. 30 min, in compliance with an impli-
cation which was contained in this compro-
mise, was afterwards admitted as slave
holding State, and the free States acqui-
esced
In 1919, Florida, a slaveholding province
of Spain, was acquired. This province was
afterwards admitted as slaveholding State.
The free States again acquiesced In lS45.
IpYac .nHapo,,1opt cl yoboll;nrr
was annexed, with provision in the article
of annexation for the subdivision of her
territory into five States. The free States,
although they regarded the annexation, with
the probable increase of the number of slave
states, with very great disfavor, nevertheless
acquiesced again. New territories were &C
CURED by the treaty of peace which closed
the war with Mexico. The people of Cali
fornia formed constitution prohibiting
slavery, and applied for admission into the
Union. Violent opposition was made by
the slave states in and out of Congress
threat tening the dissolution of the Union if
California should be admitted. Proceeding
on the ground of these alarms, Congress
adopted another compromise, the terms of
which were, that ten millions of dollars of
the peoples money should be given to Tex
40 W 'iuuSC HCl " iClllIQulSll u very uOuUl-
full claim upon an inconsiderable part of
New Mexico, that New Mexico and Utah
should be organized without an inhibition
of slavery, and that they should be after
wards admitted as slave or free States as the
people, when forming constitutions, should
determine that the public slave trade in
the District of Columbia should be abolished
without effecting the existence of slavery in
the district; and that new and rigorous pro-
visions for the re-capture of fugitive slaves,
of disputed coustitutionality, should be
adopted, and that on these conditions Cali
forna should be admitted as free State
Repugnant as this compromise was to the
people of the free states, acquiescence was
nevertheless practically obtained by means
of solemn assurances, made on behalf of the
slaveholding States, that the compromise
was and should be forever regarded as final
adjustment of the slavery question, and of
all the issues which could possibly arise out
of it, A new Congress convened in Decem-
Der 1851. Representatives from the slave
states demanded renewed pledge of fidelity
to this adjustment. 1t was granted by the
House of Representatives on the following
terms:
Resolved, "That we recognize the binding
efficacy of the compromises of the constitu.
ton, and believed it to be the intention of
the people generally, as we hereby declare it
IN ha OIrc indiN;duall,, IN n hide h1y O., oh non,