inance for its
government, and gave thereto their full and free consent. The Ordinance
may, therefore, be regarded as virtually a treaty between the States
which ceded and those which received that extensive domain. In the other
case, Missouri and the whole region affected by the Missouri Compromise,
were parts of the territory acquired from France under the name of
Louisiana; and, as it requires two parties to make or amend a treaty,
France and the Government of the United States should have cooeperated in
any amendment of the treaty by which Louisiana had been acquired, and
which guaranteed to the inhabitants of the ceded territory "all the
rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States,"
and "the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion
they profess."--("State Papers," vol. ii, "Foreign Relations," p. 507.)

For all the reasons thus stated, it seems to me conclusive that the
action of the Congress of the Confederation in 1787 could not constitute
a precedent to justify the action of the Congress of the United States
in 1820, and that the prohibitory clause of the Missouri Compromise was
without constitutional authority, in violation of the rights of a part
of the joint owners of the territory, and in disregard of the
obligations of the treaty with France.

The basis of sectional controversy was the question of the balance of
political power. In its earlier manifestations this was undisguised. The
purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, and the
subsequent admission of a portion of that Territory into the Union as a
State, afforded one of the earliest occasions for the manifestation of
sectional jealousy, and gave rise to the first threats, or warnings
(which proceeded from New England), of a dissolution of the Union. Yet,
although negro slavery existed in Louisiana, no pretext was made of that
as an objection to the acquisition. The ground of opposition is frankly
stated in a letter of that period from one Massachusetts statesman to
another--"that the influence of _our_ part of the Union must be
diminished by the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity."[6]

Some years afterward (in 1819-'20) occurred the memorable contest with
regard to the admission into the Union of Missouri, the second State
carved out of the Louisiana Territory. The controversy arose out of a
proposition to attach to the admission of the new State a proviso
prohibiting slavery o