Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1860-03-08

shall be elsewhere represented and be taxed as
persons. What should be done if the slave
should escape into labor State? Should that
State confess him to be chattel, and restore
him as such, or might it regard him as per-
son, and harbor and protect him as a man p
They compromised again, and decided that no
person held to labor or service inOne State by
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall
by any law or regulation of that State, be dis
charged from suchsabor or service, but shall be
delivered up on claim to the person to whom
such labor or service shall be due.
Free laborers would immigrate, and slaves
might be imported into the State The fathers
agreed that Congress may establish uniform laws
of naturalization, and it might prohibit impor-
tation of persons after 1908. Communities in
the Southwest, detached from the Southern
States, were growing up in the practice of slav-
cry, 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
Ak to begin there its endless but bene6cent task.
The fathers authorized Congress to make all
needful rules and regulations concerning the ar
rangement 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
every human being, when within any exclusive
sphere of Federal jurisdiction, not as capital
but as person.
What was the action of the fathers in Con-
gresp? 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 d.
reoted fugitives from service to be restored not
as chattels, but as persons. They awarded
naturalization to immigrant free laborers, and
they prohibited the trade in African labor. This
disposition of the whole subject was in harmo-
ny with the condition of society, and, in the
main, with the spirit of the age. The seven
Northern States contentedly became labor States
by their own acts. The six Southern States
with equal tranquility, and by their own deter
minaton, remained capital States.
The circumstances which the fathers did not
clearly foresee were two, namely the reinvig-
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 slaveholding French settle
ment, within the newly acquired Louis snian
Territory, had then already been admitted into
the Union. There yet remained, however, a
vast region which included Arkansas and Mis-
souri,, together with the then unOccupied and
even unarmed Kansas and Nebraska. Arkansas,
a slaveholding community, was nearly ready to
apply and Missouri, another such Territory,
was actually applying for admission into the
Federal Union. The existing capital States sec
onded these applications, and claimed that the
Louisianian Territory was rightfully open to
slavery, and TO the organization of future slave
States. 1t was purely and simply national
question whether the common interest OF the
whole republic required that Arkansas, Nilsson
ri, Kansas and Nebraska, should become capt.
tai States, with all the security, benefits and
! blessings of freedom. On this decision was sus-
pended the question, as was thought, whether
ultimately the interior of this new continent
should be an asylum for the oppressed and the
exile, coming year after year and age after age,
Voluntarily from every other civilized land, as
we'll as for the children of misfortune in our
own, or whether through the renewal Of the
African slave trade these mangifcent and luxuri'
ant regions should be surrendered TO the control
of capital, wringing outlthe fruit of the earth
through the impoverishing toll of negro slaves.
That question 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 wrOngfulness
of slavery its effects, present and future the
constitutional authority of Congress the claims
of the States and Of their citizens the nature
of the Federal Union, whether it is compact
between the States, or an Independent govern
ment ; the springs Of its powers, and the llga-
lures upon their exercise. All these were dis
cussed with zeal and ability which have never
been surpassed. History tells US, know not
how truly, that the Union reeled under the We
hemence of that gaeat debate. Patriotism took
counsel from prudence, and enforced settle
ment which has proved to be not a final one
and which, as is now seen, practically lett open
all the great political issues which were involved.
Missouri and Arkansas were admitted as capt.
tai States, while labor obtained, as reseiva-
ton, the abridged, but yet comprehensive fold
of Kansas and Nebraska.
Now, when the present conditions of the va
rious parts of the LouisianiaD Territory are OBJ
served, and we see that capital retains undis-
puted possession of what it then obtained,
while labor is convulsing the country with so
hard and so prolonged struggle to regain the
lost equivalent which was then guaranteed to it
under circumstances of to great solemnity, we
NAV we'll desire not to be undeceived if the
Missouri Compromise wac indeed unnecessarily
accepted by the free States, influenced by exag-
gerations of the dangers of disWnon The Mis-
souri, debate disclosed truths Of great moment
for ulteriOr use :
First That it is easy to combine the capital
States in defense of even external interests,
whileit is hard to unite the labor States in a
common policy.