Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-03-10

capital or as persons, or should they not be rep
resented or taxed at all? The Fathers disa-
greed debated long, and compromised at last
Each State, they determined, shall have two
Senators in Congress. 1hree-ffths the slaves
shall be elsewhere represented, and be taxed as
persons. What should be done if the slave
should escape into q labor State? Should that
State confess him to be a chattel, and restore
him as such, or might it regard him as per-
son, and harbor and protect him as man p
They compromised again, and decided that no
person held to labor or service in one State, by
the laws thereof, SHALL by any law or regulation
of that State, be discharged from such labor or
service, but shall be delivered up on claim to
the person to whom such labor or service shall
be due.
Free laborers would cmigratc, and slaves
might be imported into the United States. The
fathers agreed that Congress may establish uni
form laws of naturalization, and it might pro-
hibit the importation of persons after 1905
Communities in the Southwest, detached from
the Southern States, were growing up in the
practice of slavery, to be capital States. New
States would soon grow up in the Northwest,
while as yet capital stood aloof, and labor had
not lifted the axe to begin there its endless but
bcnefccnt task. The fathers authorized Con-
grcss to make all needful rules and regulations
concerning the management and disposition of
the public lands, and to admit new States. So
the Constitution, while it does not disturb or
affect the system of capital in slaves, existing
in any State under its own laws, does, at the
same time, recognize every human being when
within any exclusive sphere of Federal juris-
diction, not as capital, but as a person.
What was the action of the fathers in Con-
grcss? They admitted the new States of the
Southwest as capital States, because it was
practically impossible to do otherwise, and by
the ordinance of 1887, confirmed in 1889, they
provided for the organization and admission Of
only labor States in the Northwest. They di-
rected fugitives from service TO be restored, not
as chattels, but as persons. They awarded nat
urallzation to immgrout free laborers, and they
prohibited the trade in African labor. This
disposition of the whole subject was in harmony
with the condition of society, and, in the main,
with the spirit Of the age. The seven North
crn States contentedly became labor States by
their own acts. The six Southern States, with
equal tranquility and by their own detcrmina-
ton, remained capital States.
The circumstances which the fathers did not
clearly foresee were two namely: the re.in,ig-
Grafton of slavery consequent on the increased
consumption of cotton, and the extension Of
the national domain across the Mississippi. and
these occurred before 1920. The State of Lou
isiana, formed on a slavcholding French settle
ment within the newly-acquircd Iouisianan
Territory, had then already been admitted into
the Union. There yet remained, however,
vast region, which included Arkansas and Mis-
souri, together with the then unoccupcd and
even unnamed Kansas and Nebraska. Arkan-
sas, slaveholding community, was nearly
ready to apply, and Missouri another such Ter
ritory, was actually applying for admission into
the Federal Union. The existing capital States
Ia1 thaen o,,1 81,
the whole Louisianian Territory was rightfuly
open to slavery, and to the organization of fu-
ture slave States. The labor States maintained
that Congress had supreme legislative power
within the domain, and could and ought to ex-
clude slavery there. The question thus opened
was one which related not at all to slavery in
the existing capital States. |, was purely and
simply a national question whether the common
interest of the whole Republic required that
Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska,
should become capital States, with all the evils
and dangers of slavery or be labor States, with
all the security, benefits, and blessings Of free
dom. On the decision was suspended the ques-
ton, as was thought, whether ultimately the in
terror of this new continent should be an asy-
lum for the oppressed and the exile, coming
year after year, and age after age, voluntarily
from every other civilized land, as well as for
the children Of misfortune in our own, or wheth-
cr, through the renewal of the African slave
trade, those magnificent and luxuriant regions
should be subjected to the control of capital,
wringing out the fruit of the earth through the
impoverlshing toll of negro slaves. The ques-
ton of 1920 was identically the question Of
1860, so far as principle, and even the field of
its application was concerned. Every element
Of the controversy now present entered it then
the rightfulness or the wrongfulncss of slavery
of ,l
al authority of Congress; the claims of the
States, and of their citizens; the nature of the
Federal Union, whether il is compact between
the States, or an independent government; the
springs OF its powers and the ligatures upon
| their exercise. All these were discussed with
zeal and ability which have never been sur
passed. History tells us, know not how tru-
| ly that the Union reeled under the vehemence
of that great debate. Patriotism took counsel
from prudence, and enforced settlement which
has proved to be not final one; and which, as
is now seen practically left open all the great
political issues which were involved. Missouri
and Arkansas were admitted as capital States
while labor obtained, as a reservation, the
abridged yet comprehensive field of Kansas and
Nebraska.
Now, when the present conditions of the va.
rious parts of the louisianian Territory are OBJ
served, and we see that capital retains undis-
puted the possession Of what it then obtained
while labor is convulsng the country with sc
hard and so prolonged a struggle to regain The
lost equivalent wLich was then guaranteed to i
under circumstances of so great solemnity, w
may well desire not to be undeceiye ed if the
/ Missouri Compromise was indeed unnecessarily
accepted by the free States influenced by exag
geratons of the dangers of disunion. Tht
Missouri debate disclosed truths of great mo
ment for ulterior use:
First. That it is easy to combine the capita
States in defense of even external interests
while it is hard to unite the labor Of States il
a common policy.
Second. That the labor States have natura
loyalty to the Union, while the capital State
have natural facility for alarming that loyalt!
by threatening disunion.
Third That the capital States do not practi
cally distinguish between legitimate and consti
tutional resistance to the extension of SLAYER
in the common Territories of the Union, AM
unconstitutional aggression against slavery es
tablished by local laws in the capital States.
The early political parties were organized
without reference TO slavery. But since 1920
European questions have left us practically un