ompromises," he
still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph
of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:

CONGRESS HALL, _March 2d_, 1820, 3 _o'clock at night_.

DEAR SIR:---I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
36 deg. 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a
short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a
great triumph.

The votes were close--ninety to eighty-six--produced by the seceding and
absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36 deg. 30,'
there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a
foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
great length of time.

With respect, your obedient servant,

CHARLES PINCKNEY.

But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the fact
that _he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
Ordinance of_ '87, and that _on every occasion, when it was under the
consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments_.--_Jour. Am.
Congress_, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for
its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.]

[Footnote 21:--By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.]

[Footnote 22:--_Vide_ notes 5 and 17, _ante_.]

[Footnote 23:--"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.]

[Footnote 24:--"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
consists in this: in the former