The Question of Slavery in the United States

Issue of Slavery - Page 2

In the province of Louisiana slavery existed under the laws of both France and Spain, and when France ceded the region to the United States, in 1803, Article III of the treaty provided that "The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess."

As slaves were recognized as "property," the United States, by entering into this treaty, agreed to maintain and protect slavery as it then existed in the province when the district of Louisiana was erected into a territory in 1805 a section of the act "gave a tacit confirmation to the system of slavery, already established in the settlements on the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers."

The United States in 1803-04, courtesy Wikipedia

All the present State of Kansas, except a little of the southwest corner, was included in the Louisiana Purchase. That portion lying west of the meridian of 99° west longitude and south of the Arkansas River was a part of the Republic of Texas, in which slavery was also a legalized institution. Hence it may be truly said that, prior to the acquisition of this territory by the United States, slavery was a legalized institution in the whole of Kansas. Had the French or Spanish founded settlements within the present limits of Kansas, there could have been no legal objection to the introduction of slaves into such settlements. But at the time Missouri applied for admission into the Union, as referred to by Governor Medary in his veto message, the situation was changed. The Missouri Compromise provided for the prohibition of slavery in all that part of the Louisiana Purchase lying north of the line of 36° 30' north latitude, thus making Kansas a free territory, and it remained so without question or quibble for thirty years.

After the purchase of Louisiana and the passage of the Missouri Compromise, the next event to precipitate a violent discussion of the slavery question was the annexation of Texas. On March 1, 1845, President John Tyler approved a joint resolution for the annexation, and the Congressional Globe for that date says: "As soon as the announcement was made, a loud burst of plaudits pealed through the house, which were with difficulty suppressed." At that time the Republic of Texas and the Mexican government were in a dispute over the boundaries, and the act of annexation brought on the war between the United States and Mexico. It was generally understood that the whole scheme was in the interest of the slave power, which needed more territory. The act provided that south of the line 36° 30' not more than four states were to be erected, these states to be admitted with or without slavery as the people might determine. North of that line slavery was to be prohibited. It was by this provision that the little portion of Kansas in the southwest corner was made free territory.

On August 8, 1846, President James Polk sent a special message to Congress asking that a considerable sum of money be appropriated for the purpose of negotiating a peace with Mexico. A bill was reported appropriating $30,000 to defray the expenses of the negotiation and $3,000,000 "to be used at the discretion of the president in making the proposed treaty." The bill failed to pass at that session, and when Congress assembled in December, 1846, a bill raising the appropriation to $3,000,000 was introduced. When it became apparent that any treaty with Mexico would result in the acquisition of territory by the United States, the slavery question again became an all-absorbing issue.

About this time, the Southern statesmen, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, advanced the theory that the constitution of the United States carried slavery into all Federal territory unless excluded by special enactment of some positive law to the contrary. To offset this dogma, when the $3,000,000 appropriation bill came up as a special order on February 1, 1847, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania offered in the house the following proviso: "That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any territory on the continent of America which shall hereafter be acquired by or annexed to the United States by virtue of this appropriation, or in any other manner whatever, except for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided always, That any person escaping into such territory from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully claimed and conveyed out of said territory to the power claiming his or her labor or service."

The Union, a symbolic group portrait eulogizing

legislative efforts, including the Compromise of 1850,

to preserve the Union. Painted by Tompkins H. Matteson

and engraved by Henry S. Sadd, 1852.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

The Wilmot Proviso was defeated, and on February 2, 1848, a treaty with Mexico was concluded, whereby California, New Mexico and the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and the Neuces Rivers passed into the possession of the United States. In the long debate which ensued over the organization of the territories of Oregon, California and New Mexico the anti-slavery sentiment in the house asserted itself by the passage of a resolution -- 108 ayes to 80 nos -- to exclude slavery from these territories. A few days later another resolution, asking the committee on affairs of the District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting slavery in the district, was passed by a vote of 126 to 87, but it was defeated in the senate.

Thus matters stood in Congress when California applied to the session of 1849-50 for admission into the Union. On January 29, 1850, Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions, which he designed as the basis of a compromise, and which he thought would settle the question of slavery for all time. At the outset, many of those who had threatened "disunion," opposed Clay's compromise, because it did not go far enough, while the "Wilmot Proviso" men were equally resolute in opposing it, because it went too far.

Notwithstanding this radical difference of opinion, on April 17 a select committee, of which Clay was chairman, reported a bill of 39 sections, intended to cover all phases of the subject. This bill became known as the "Omnibus Bill," on account of the variety of topics it included. Concerning the compromise of 1850, Alexander H. Stephens, in his Constitutional View of the War Between the States, said: "The principle settled was clearly this, that after the principal division had been abandoned and repudiated by the north in the organization of all territorial governments, the principle of Congressional restriction should be totally abandoned also, and that all new states, whether north or south of 36° 30', should be admitted into the Union 'either with or without slavery, as their constitutions might prescribe at the time of their admission.'"

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