Union; and soon after the
territory of Florida was organized without prohibition of slavery.

From 1787 until the Missouri question came up, no successful attempt was
made by Congress to prohibit slavery in any territory of the United
States. In 1817, Missouri applied for admission to the Union. Her
admission as a Slave State was strenuously contested, and to the act
authorizing her to form a State Constitution was appended a provision
applying the 6th or anti-slavery section of the ordinance of 1787 to all
the territory ceded by Louisiana, outside of the limits of Missouri, and
north of 36 deg. 30 min. north latitude, or the southern boundary of
Missouri. The adoption of this act, fixing a geographical line between
Free States and Slave States, has been called a compromise. The
proposition was beyond doubt made in the spirit of compromise, and
received the support of compromise men, but the North who insisted upon
the exclusion of Missouri with a slave constitution, generally voted
against the act in its final passage, and the South, for the sake of
getting Missouri in with a slave constitution, as generally voted for
it. The compromise was not acceptable to either side, and when Missouri
presented her Constitution in 1821 for the approval of Congress, her
admission was again opposed by Northern men, and made conditional upon
her declaration by solemn act of her legislature, that a clause of her
Constitution relating to free negroes and mulattoes, should not be
construed to authorize any law violating the privileges and immunities
of any citizen of either of the States of the Union, under the
Constitution of the United States. Missouri made the declaration
required, and by proclamation of the President, became a State on August
10th, 1821. The resolution of Congress of 2d March, 1821, was beyond
doubt the real condition or compromise upon which Missouri was admitted,
and it was in this compromise and not in that of 1820, that Henry Clay
took part. Strange as it may seem; it is nevertheless true, that
notwithstanding the alleged compromise of 1820, an attempt was made in
1821 by Northern men in Congress to override that compromise,--that
"sacred compact," that "plighted faith," that "landmark of
freedom,"--and to keep Missouri out of the Union, because she had
adopted in her Constitution a provision to prevent free negroes or
mulattoes from coming to or settling in the State--a provision which is
contained in the presen