1803 we purchased what was then called
Louisiana, of France. It included the present States of Louisiana,
Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa; also the Territory of Minnesota, and the
present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska. Slavery already existed
among the French at New Orleans, and to some extent at St. Louis. In 1812
Louisiana came into the Union as a slave State, without controversy. In
1818 or '19, Missouri showed signs of a wish to come in with slavery. This
was resisted by Northern members of Congress; and thus began the first
great slavery agitation in the nation. This controversy lasted several
months, and became very angry and exciting--the House of Representatives
voting steadily for the prohibition of slavery in Missouri, and the Senate
voting as steadily against it. Threats of the breaking up of the Union
were freely made, and the ablest public men of the day became seriously
alarmed. At length a compromise was made, in which, as in all compromises,
both sides yielded something. It was a law, passed on the 6th of March,
1820, providing that Missouri might come into the Union with slavery, but
that in all the remaining part of the territory purchased of France
which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude,
slavery should never be permitted. This provision of law is the "Missouri
Compromise." In excluding slavery north of the line, the same language
is employed as in the Ordinance of 1787. It directly applied to Iowa,
Minnesota, and to the present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska.
Whether there should or should not be slavery south of that line, nothing
was said in the law. But Arkansas constituted the principal remaining
part south of the line; and it has since been admitted as a slave State,
without serious controversy. More recently, Iowa, north of the line, came
in as a free State without controversy. Still later, Minnesota, north
of the line, had a territorial organization without controversy. Texas,
principally south of the line, and west of Arkansas, though originally
within the purchase from France, had, in 1819, been traded off to Spain
in our treaty for the acquisition of Florida. It had thus become a part
of Mexico. Mexico revolutionized and became independent of Spain. American
citizens began settling rapidly with their slaves in the southern part
of Texas. Soon they revolutionized against Mexico, and established an
independent government of their own, adopting a