Throughout December and January, pressure built in Washington as the Senate and house occupied the restored Capitol chambers for the first time since they had been torched by the British in the War of 1812. Historian George Dangerfield wrote: “From December 8, 1819 until March 20, 1820, Congress discussed in all its aspects – legal, Constitutional, moral, political, economic – the problem of whether Missouri should be admitted to statehood with slavery or without it. The basic events were complex as the House and Senate debated competing bills, amended each others’ bills, rejected the amendments to each others’ bills. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was constrained from commenting publicly on the controversy, but wrote in his journal: “Never since human sentiments and human conduct were influenced by human speech was there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this question now before Congress of this Union. By what fatality does it happen that all the most eloquent orators of the body are on its slavish side? There is a great mass of cool judgment and plain sense on the side of freedom and humanity, but the ardent spirits and passions are on the side of oppression. Oh, if but one man could arise with a genius capable of comprehending, a heart capable of supporting, and an utterance capable of communicating those eternal truths that belong to this question, to lay bare in all its nakedness that outrage upon the goodness of God, human slavery, now is the time, and this is the occasion, upon which such a man would perform the duties of an angel upon the earth!”⁸³ Two decades later, that man would be John Quincy Adams himself as a member of Congress from Massachusetts.

The debates were a mix of constitutional and practical concerns – but they raised questions that struck at fundamental assumptions and settled law like the Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance. New York State Senator King raised an even more fundamental point, declaring that slavery was "contrary to the law of nature.” Historian George Dangerfield wrote that King in February gave two major anti-slavery speeches regarding Missouri. “His language was grave, dignified, and earnest, and ‘the great slave-holders in the House gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as they heard him.’ This speech was followed by a second, on February 16, and the effect of this second speech was even more enraging, if one may judge by the virulence of the replies. Yet Mr. King had, for the most part, confined himself to Constitutional arguments, and with Constitutional arguments the Southern Senators were perfectly at their ease. Why then were they so enraged? Partly, no doubt, because they believed that Mr. King was bent on forming a new party designed to crush them; partly because, when he did venture beyond the theoretical pale of the federal and state Constitutions, he was either understood too well or not understood at all. When he declared that slavery was contrary to natural law, he was hated for saying it because he was the first Senator to do so, and because it was true.”⁸⁴ Carl Schurz wrote:

Clay has been widely credited with being the "father" of the Missouri Compromise. As to the main features of the measure this credit he did not deserve. So far he had taken a prominent but not an originating part in the transaction. His leadership in disposing of the Missouri question belonged to a later stage of the proceeding. But the part he had so far taken appeared to be little in accord with his early anti-slavery professions. The speeches he made in the course of these debates, among them one of four hours, have never been reported. But some of the things he said we can gather from the speeches of those who replied to him. Thus we find that he most strenuously opposed the exclusion of slavery from Missouri, and any interference with it; we find him asserting that Congress had no right whatever to prescribe conditions to newly organized states in any way restricting their ‘sovereign rights;’ we find him sneering at the advocates of slavery-restriction as afflicted with ‘negrophobia;’ we find him pathetically, in the name of humanity, excusing the extension of slavery as apt to improve the condition of the negro, and advancing the argument that the evils of slavery might be cured by spreading it; we find him provoking a reply like the following from Taylor of New York: —

"It [labor] is considered low and unfit for freemen. I cannot better illustrate this truth than by referring to a remark of the honorable gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Clay]. I have often admired the liberality of his sentiments. He is governed by no vulgar prejudices; yet with what abhorrence did he speak of the performance, by your wives and daughters, of those domestic offices which he was pleased to call servile! What comparison did he make of the "black slaves" of Kentucky and the "white slaves" of the North; and how instantly did he strike a balance in favor of the condition of the former! If such opinions and expressions, even in the ardor of debate, can fall from that honorable gentleman, what ideas do you suppose are entertained of laboring men by the majority of slave-holders!"

We find him arguing that the provision of the Constitution, "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," would be violated by the restriction to be imposed on Missouri as to slavery.

The compromise as proposed he supported heartily, and when the bill embodying it had passed we find him resorting to a very sharp and questionable trick to save it from further interference.⁸⁵

Ultimately, the Missouri Compromise was designed by a northern slaveholder. The compromise was shaped by Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois. Thomas’s amendment read: “That, in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever prohibited: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any State or Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service aforesaid.”⁸⁶ Historian Don E. Fehrenbacher noted that Thomas simply adapted the proposal made the previous year by New York Congressman Taylor when the future of Arkansas was being debated: “Northern members of Congress voted for it, 115 to 7 (Senate 20 to 2; House 95 to 5). As a separate measure, it would have been opposed by southerners with similar solidarity, but proslavery strategists eventually brought it forward as an offer of part of the price to be paid for the admission of Missouri as a slave state. The question of whether to make this concession divided the southern membership in Congress, a membership that had otherwise displayed a high degree of unity wherever slavery was concerned. Southerners voted for the Thomas amendment, 53 to 45 (Senate: 14 to 8; House 39 to 37). This was, in a sense, a measure of southern willingness to compromise.”⁸⁷

With a compromise amendment to work with, Clay did his job. Historian Walter A. McDougall wrote: “Clay used his power as speaker to appoint pliable members to a House-Senate conference, then he called for separate votes on the three parts of the deal. That prevented southern ‘ultras’ angry over the Thomas amendment from joining with northern restrictionists to defeat the package. Maine statehood breezed through. Missouri statehood with slavery squeaked through on the votes or abstentions of nineteen northern ‘dough faces.’ The Thomas amendment passed 134 to 42. On the evening of March 2, 1820, Clay secretly ratified the votes and rushed them to the Senate to pre-empt motions to reconsider. Monroe, much relieved, signed off.”⁸⁸ Historian Merrill D. Peterson wrote: “In the eyes of Congress, Clay alone seemed capable of achieving a settlement of the crisis. Forceful, eloquent, indefatigable, magnanimous, he pursued his object, it was said, ‘with a zeal which does equal honor to his heart and head, as though he desired to earn for himself, in the last days of his service in Congress, the laurel, peacefully won, which never fades.’ After a week’s labor, the committee reported. It called for Missouri’s admission on the condition that the legislature never pass a law barring settlement by any description of persons who are or who may become citizens of the United States. Whenever the legislature signified its assent to the condition, the president would proclaim Missouri a state without further ado. The proposition went some way toward meeting anti-slavery objections. Neither side got what it wanted, but neither was compelled to yield it principle. Clay, leading off the debate, appealed to ‘that spirit of compromise which is occasionally necessary to the existence of all societies.’” Nevertheless, it was defeated.⁸⁹ Historian H. W. Brands wrote: “The enemies of compromise, they said, would divide and conquer. But the professional politicians understood: Clay’s maneuver allowed his colleagues to vote their consciences on parts of the package and conciliation on the rest. By finagling the majorities, he’d get the compromise through, and they’d preserve their bona fides for constituents back home.” ⁹⁰ As Remini described the events: “The House rejected the Senate bill that tied Missouri and Maine together with the Thomas amendment, whereupon the Senate informed the House that it would agree to no other. An impasse. So a joint committee of the two houses, to which Clay appointed a majority of conciliators who favored compromise, was formed to break the deadlock..”

Through rhetoric and personality, Clay succeeded, but as historian Leonard L. Richards wrote, “it took all of Henry Clay’s manipulative genius to bring the two-year battle over Missouri to a close.” ⁹¹ Remini wrote that “as a mollifying gesture toward the House, the three parts of the bill – a free Maine, a slave Missouri, and no slavery north of 36° 30' in the Louisiana Territory – were subsequently separated into three individual bills of legislation. And strangely, what was unpalatable as a single dose was swallowed by the House in three separate gulps.” That was because different sets of congressmen provided the needed votes for each part. Some northern congressmen – whom John Randolph termed “doughfaces” – bowed to southern pressure on slavery in Missouri to allow passage of the compromise. ⁹¹ Historian Sean Wilentz noted: “Clay’s major weapon as Speaker, apart from his rhetorical skills and stamina, was his power over committee appointments. On February 29, the House consented to hold a joint conference with the Senate over the outstanding issues, and Clay chose reliably pro-compromise members for the conference committee. Keeping the restrictionists momentarily happy, Clay, the next day, allowed the House to pass its own Missouri bill, even as the conference committee met. The day after that, the Senate returned the House bill once more, with the restrictionist amendment stricken and the Thomas amendment restored – and at virtually the same hour, the conference committee issued a quickly drafted statement urging passage of the Senate version. Clay knew that he could never get a majority in the House if he presented his compromise in a single bill, so the House considered Missouri statehood and the 36° 30' questions separately. With the South voting as a bloc and with eighteen northerners either going along or absenting themselves, the House agreed, by a mere three votes, to remove its slavery restriction provision. The outcome was touch and go until the final tally was counted.”⁹³

The issues came to a head at the beginning of March.⁹⁴ The anti-slavery forces were losing their stamina and their majority as the House voted 134-42 to replaced the Taylor Amendment with the Thomas Amendment. Carl Schurz wrote of Clay’s exercise of raw power in thwarting the intervention of Virginia Congressman John Randolph, an eccentric and quarrelsome politician whose antics alienated and aggravated Washington leaders for three decades. Randolph was a walking contradiction – personally antislavery but vehemently pro-states rights. Glover Moore argued that Randolph “was the most conspicuous of the disunionists. This picturesque and querulous descendant of Pocahontas opposed any compromise or concession to the North, declaring that ‘God has given us the Missouri and the devil shall not take it from us.’ As if anticipating the events of 1861, he formulated a plan by which all the Southern delegation should abandon Congress in a body, but it is not certain whether he made this rash proposal in 1820 or 1821.” ⁹⁵ Randolph intended to thwart Clay, but instead was thwarted by the speaker. Schurz observed: “The bill passed on March 2. On the morning of March 3, John Randolph, having voted with the majority, offered a motion that the vote be reconsidered. Clay, as Speaker, promptly ruled the motion out of order ‘until the ordinary business of the morning, as prescribed by the rules of the House, should be disposed of.’ The House went on receiving and referring petitions. When petitions were called for from the members from Virginia, Randolph moved ‘that the House retain in their possession the Missouri bill until the period should arrive when, according to the rules of the House, a motion to reconsider should be in order.’ Speaker Clay ‘declared this motion out of order for the reason assigned on the first application of Mr. Randolph on this day.’ When the morning business was at last disposed of, Randolph ‘moved the House now to reconsider their vote of yesterday.’ Then Speaker Clay — so the record runs — ‘having ascertained the fact, stated to the House that the proceedings of the House on that bill yesterday had been communicated to the Senate by the clerk, and that, the bill not being in possession of the House, the motion to reconsider could not be entertained.’ The bill had been hurried up to the Senate while Speaker Clay was ruling Randolph's motions out of order. It is certain that a mere hint by the Speaker to the clerk would have kept the bill in the House. It is also probable, if not certain, that the first motion by Randolph, being heard by the clerk, would have had the same effect, had not that official received a hint from the Speaker, that he desired the bill to be hurried off, out of Randolph's reach. The history of the House probably records no sharper trick. ⁹⁶

Southerners used the debate to justify slavery. “From the opinions expressed respecting the Southern States and the slaves there, it appears to me most clear that the members on the opposite side know nothing of the Southern States, their lands, products or slaves. Those who visit us, or go to the southward, find so great a difference that many of them remain and settle there,” argued South Carolina Congressman Charles Pinckney. “Sir, when we recollect that our former parent State was the original cause of introducing slavery into America, and that neither ourselves or ancestors are chargeable with it; that it cannot be got rid of without ruining the country, certainly the present mild treatment of our slaves is most honorable to that part of the country where slavery exists. Every slave has a comfortable house, is well fed, clothed, and taken care of; he has his family about him, and in sickness has the same medical aid as his master, and has a sure and comfortable retreat in his old age, to protect him against its infirmities and weakness. During the whole of his life he is free from care, that canker of the human heart, which destroys at least one half of the thinking part of mankind, and from which a favored few, very few, if indeed any, can be said to be free. Being without education, and born to obey, to persons of that description moderate labor and discipline are essential. The discipline ought to be mild, but still, while slavery is to exist, there must be discipline. In this state they are happier than they can possibly be if free. A free black can only be happy where he has some share of education and has been bred to a trade or some kind of business. The great body of slaves are happier in their present situation than they could be in any other, and the man or men who would attempt to give them freedom, would be their greatest enemies.”⁹⁷

President Monroe had twin sets of concerns – solving the Missouri problem and appeasing Virginia politicians. Historian Noble Cunningham noted that Monroe was “more actively engaged in discussions with members of Congress on the Missouri question than he disclosed to either Clay or Adams. He maintained particularly close contact with the president pro tempore of the Senate, James Barbour of Virginia. On February 1, 1820, Barbour had told the Senate: “But let us suppose [the South] will quietly submit to the wrongs you inflict, what must be their feelings friendly to union – to that harmony so essential to our common prosperity? What is the foundation of our connexion? The Federal compact? He must indeed, be profoundly ignorant of human nature, if he suppose the union reposes on such a foundation. No, sir, it is a common interest, and those kind and affectionate sentiments which the preservation by a parental government of that interest generates, form its prop and security. Withdraw these, you may preserve the form, but the vital part is gone.” ⁹⁸ Cunningham wrote:

“On February 3, Monroe began a letter to Barbour by saying that he had reflected much on the subject of our conversation yesterday,’ and he ended by asking Barbour to dine with him that day. Also invited with representatives John Floyd of Virginia and Samuel Ringold of Maryland, along with ‘one or two more friends.’ The subject Barbour and Monroe had discussed was whether the admission of Maine should be made dependent on the admission of Missouri without restriction. In his letter of Barbour, Monroe gave his decided opinion that ‘the best course for our Union, and for that also of the Southern States, will be to separate the two questions at once, and to admit Maine.’ If delayed even for a few days, the opportunity would be lost, he warned, but if adopted immediately, it would put the southern members on high ground, reward the eastern members who had voted with the South against restrictions on Missouri, and ‘command the applause of the Union.’ The movement of events, however, was outpacing the president.”⁹⁹

Historian James Schouler wrote about the final machinations that allowed the compromise’s passage: “The first day of Spring saw, therefore, the Missouri question brought to its crisis in Congress; the majorities of the two Houses diametrically opposed as to admitting that State with or without an anti-slavery condition. But the joint committee of conference were already at work, and the air was thick with rumors of a compromise. The very next day, in fact, March 2d, that compromise was effected; the Senate, in a word, carrying out their whole programme, which, in reality, embraced an offer of compromise through the Thomas amendment, yielding, nevertheless, a courteous separation of the Maine and Missouri bills, now that their junction remained a mere matter of form. The condition that Missouri should prohibit slavery by its constitution, and enter the Union virtually as a free State, a condition demanded by the previous and the present House, and the source of the whole controversy, was thus completely abandoned. Louisiana, Missouri, and prospectively Arkansas were yielded up to slave institutions; but, agreeably to the Thomas amendment, slavery was forever prohibited in the remaining part of the Louisiana cession lying north of latitude 36° 30'. The ponderous jaws of legislation, which usually grind so slowly, may be made to disgorge a session's grist in a few hours; and so was it now. In the Senate the Missouri bill from the House was amended by striking out the anti-slavery proviso, 27 to 15, Otis and King voting with the minority; and with the Thomas territorial amendment inserted the bill was returned to the House for concurrence. Simultaneously with its reappearance in that body, [Virginian David] Holmes, from the Committee of Conference, reported the compromise programme agreed upon, which, after a stormy debate, lasting until evening, prevailed. Eighteen northern men co-operated to carry it out, more in truth than were positively necessary; for the Taylor prohibition of slavery in Missouri which two days before had commanded a majority of nine on a line nearly geographical, was now discarded by 90 to 87. After this test of strength the Thomas proviso was easily carried, the vote standing 134 to 42, nearly all the northern members, in fact, accepting it while 37 of those voting against it were southerners who, like Randolph, denied altogether the right of Congress to put territorial restrictions upon slavery. The Maine bill being released from pledge the next day passed the Senate easily, on its distinct merits, and the two acts went at once to the President, that for the admission of Maine receiving his signature before night. Leap-year might have been thought a god-send to the northeastern community in this instance, for there was not another day to spare.”¹⁰⁰

For Southerner slaveowners, the Missouri Compromise set a dangerous precedent and thus was dangerous politics. It was almost politically suicidal to support it. Sean Wilentz wrote: “Clay was fortunate to get a bare majority of southern congressmen to back the 36° 30' restriction. Those who went along with him were not quite as fortunate: more than two-thirds of the congressmen who took a hard line and voted against the Thomas proviso won reelection in 1832, compared to about two-fifths of those who supported it.”¹⁰¹ Henry Clay was pleased with his work. “I gave my consent to and employed my best exertions to produce this settlement of the question, and I shall be rejoiced if the community will sanction it. The question thus put at rest will I hope leave no bad consequences,” wrote Clay on March 4.¹⁰² Three days later, Clay wrote: “The settlement of the Missouri question I think is a happy thing; and I believe the arrangement which has been made a very good one. Yet there are some persons on each side of the question extremely dissatisfied with it.” In his 1852 eulogy of Clay, Abraham Lincoln summarized Clay’s role in the Missouri Compromise:

Mr. Clay was in congress, and, perceiving the danger, at once engaged his whole energies to avert it. It began, as I have said, in 1819; and it did not terminate till 1821. Missouri would not yield the point; and congress – that is, a majority in congress – by repeated votes, showed a determination to not admit the state unless it should yield. After several failures, and great labor on the part of Mr. Clay to so present the question that a majority could consent to the admission, it was, by a vote, rejected, and as all seemed to think, finally. A sullen gloom hung over the nation. All felt that the rejection of Missouri, was equivalent to a dissolution of the Union: because those states which already had, what Missouri was rejected for refusing to relinquish, would go with Missouri. All deprecated and deplored this, but none saw how to avert it. For the judgment of Members to be convinced of the necessity of yielding, was not the whole difficulty; each had a constituency to meet, and to answer to. Mr. Clay. though worn down, and exhausted, was appealed to by members, to renew his efforts at compromise. He did so, and by some judicious modifications of his plan, coupled with laborious efforts with individual members, and his own over-mastering eloquence upon the floor, he finally secured the admission of the State. Brightly and captivating as it had previously shown, it was now perceived that his great eloquence, was a mere embellishment, or, at most, but a helping hand to his inventive genius, and his devotion to his country in the day of her extreme peril.¹⁰³

Only a presidential signature was necessary for the compromise to take effect. Historian James Schouler noted that President Monroe had already “consulted the three ex-Presidents by letter.”¹⁰⁴ Historian Sean Wilentz wrote: “At the White House, even before Thomas offered his amendment to the Senate, President Monroe, who fervently favored allowing slavery in Missouri – and believed that the controversy was a power play by his old foe DeWitt Clinton – kept close tabs on the Virginia delegation. He also quietly conferred with friendly northern congressmen, using patronage promises to seal their loyalty.” ¹⁰⁵ Historian George Dangerfield noted that Monroe “was by nature inclined to maximize dangers first, and minimize them afterwards.”¹⁰⁶

For Monroe, the crisis threatened both the Union and his reelection as President. “I have never known a question so menacing to the tranquility and even the continuance of our Union,” Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson on February 19, 1820. “All other subjects have given way to it, & appear to be almost forgotten. As however there is a vast portion of intelligence & virtue in the body of the people, & the bond of Union has heretofore prov'd sufficiently strong to triumph over all attempts against it, I have great confidence that this effort will not be less unavailing.”¹⁰⁷ Unlike Jefferson, Monroe’s cabinet generally supported the legislation. “A motion for excluding slavery from it...has set the two sides of the House, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, into a violent flame against each other,” wrote Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of the legislation.¹⁰⁸ Even future flamethrower John Calhoun, then the secretary of war, united behind the legislation.

President Monroe held a cabinet meeting on March 3, 1820 to ask for advice on whether the Missouri Compromise’s prohibition. All the Cabinet members agreed that Congress was within its constitutional rights to prohibit territorial slavery and that Missouri Compromise’s prohibition of slavery was constitutional. Historian Harry Ammon wrote: “The Secretaries were unanimous on the first point, although Adams detected some embarrassment on the part of his Southern colleagues at not finding the power specifically stated in the Constitution. They had to fall back on the clause empowering Congress to make needful regulations for the territories and other property of the Untied States. When Adams expressed the opinion that the word ‘forever’ in the passage prohibiting slavery north of the compromise line was binding on all future states organized in this region, a sharp exchange took place between him and Crawford, who thought his colleague sounded like Rufus King – a comparison not in the least offensive to the Secretary of State. The President and the Southern members of the Cabinet felt that the term was not applicable to future states, since it would be a limitation on their sovereignty. In view of the President’s obvious desire for unanimity, Calhoun suggested a rewording of the second question so that all could give an affirmative reply. In accordance with his proposal the Cabinet members were now asked whether the section containing the word ‘forever’ was in conflict with the Constitution. All agreed that it was not, but each interpreted the application as he saw fit.”¹⁰⁹ Historian Kevin C. Gutzman noted that Monroe “accede[d] to John C. Calhoun’s advice and sign[ed] all three bills. Monroe agreed with Calhoun that the most important imperative in the Missouri Crisis was not to secure a theoretically satisfactory outcome but just to end the debate; that way, Calhoun advised, Americans might be permanently impressed with the idea that North and South were separate and irreconcilable.”¹¹⁰

Adams observed that he thought the Missouri Compromise “to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at Hazard” he favored its approval. “But perhaps it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the States to amend and revise the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States unpolluted with slavery, with a great and glorious object to effect, namely, that of rallying to their standard the other States by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep.”¹¹¹ Scholar William Lee Miller noted that Adams and Calhoun conversed as they walked home. “After this meeting,” wrote Adams, “I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had avowed were just and noble: but that in the Southern country, whenever they were mentioned, they were always understood as applying only to white men.” Adams concluded:

“I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the states to revise and amend the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of thirteen or fourteen States, unpolluted with slavery, with a great and glorious object to effect; namely, that of rallying to their standard the other states by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep.”¹¹²

“In approving the compromise, Monroe did so convinced that this was the only way in which the Union could be preserved,” wrote historian Harry Ammon. “The plot to dismember the Union, he wrote Jefferson, had only been prevented ‘by the patriotic devotion of several members in the non slave-owning states, who preferred the sacrifice of themselves at home, to a violation of the obvious principles of the Constitution.’”¹¹³ Monroe had a strong political consideration as he considered signing the legislation; 1820 was a presidential election year. Noble E. Cunningham noted: “After Thomas introduced his compromise proposal in the Senate, Clay reported a rumor that a caucus was to be held from nonslaveholding states to nominate some person for president in opposition to Monroe in the coming presidential election. ‘I hope there is no foundation for it,’ he wrote, ‘but if the question remains open I shall not be surprized at all at such an event.’”¹¹⁴ In Monroe’s home state, Virginia legislators were greatly upset by the proposed Thomas amendment and by President Monroe’s support of conciliation and compromise. Virginia Assemblyman Charles Yancey wrote Virginia Senator James Barbour from Richmond: “It is said by many that the President and others in power think more of their situations, than the best interest of the people whose rights are involved in the Missouri questions – harsh expressions are used in relation to you all. Some say you are all frightened.”¹¹⁵ Another Virginia politician, Henry St. George Tucker wrote Senator Barbour to protest the Thomas Amendment: “A compromise which gives up the fairest and largest part of the Western Territory and leaves to us a narrow slip intersected with mountains in one direction, destroyed by Earthquakes in another, and interspersed in a third with swamps and bayous, and infested with mosquitoes, and bilious diseases, never can be grateful to us.”¹¹⁶ Richmond Enquirer Editor Thomas Ritchie wrote against compromise: “And why yield. To save a Virginia President? Because these men tell us they will split the Union? And we are to yield in this panic – as we did in the embargo times. No, whatever be the consequence, let us do our duty. If they do put us under the ban of the constitution, it is far better for them to attempt it than for us to yield up our principles to our interests....As to disunion, if our Eastern brethren have made up their minds to it, deeply, solemnly as we should regret it, we must bow to their resolution – but let us adhere to justice and the constitution. They may outvote us; – but let us not bind ourselves by our own votes.”¹¹⁷

Madison was in a political box. He indeed considered a veto, writing in some unused notes: “That the proposed restriction to Territories which are to be admitted into the Union, if not in direct violation of the Constitution, IS REPUGNANT TO ITS PRINCIPLES, since it is intended to produce an effect on the future policy of the new States, operating unequally in regard to the original States – injuring those affected by it, in an interest protected from such injury by the Constitution, without benefiting any State in the Union; and that in this sense it is repugnant to the generous spirit which has...always existed and been cherished by the several States towards each other.” One historian noted that among the southern states, “Virginia was the most uncompromising, that in fact if it had depended upon her action, the issue of slavery instead of being postponed to 1861, would have been fought to a finish at this time.”¹¹⁸ Virginia legislators met in caucus on February 9 to decide on presidential electors.

The Virginians postponed action until February 17 when calmer heads prevailed and Monroe’s reelection was endorsed – probably under the false impression that the president would exercise his veto power. That endorsement cleared Monroe’s way to signing the legislation. Assemblyman Charles Yancey wrote Senator Barbour the day before the Richmond meeting: “The feeling which rose so high...I think is fast subsiding; distrust is giving way to more liberal and just views as the difficulties and dangers have been better understood at Washington, and I hope we shall go on quietly and settle all things as we ought in the caucus.”¹¹⁹ The same day, Virginia Chief Justice Spencer Roane warned Monroe: “In this distressing crisis it becomes us to be true to ourselves, and to the Constitution, and, if necessary, to die in the last ditch. Let us cherish, also, the western people, they have an identity of interests with us, and they also hold the Keys of the Mississippi. If driven to it, we can yet form with them a great nation.”¹²⁰ The next day, Monroe’s son-in-law, George Hay, wrote him from Richmond: “I have never said how you would act, but simply that you would do your duty. The members have gone up to the caucus under a conviction that you will put your veto on this infamous cabal and intrigue, in all its forms and shapes. This I would certainly and promptly do. You may be injured in the northern and eastern States, but you will be amply repaid by the gratitude of the South.”¹²¹

The controversy did not end with Monroe’s signature. Historian Glover Moore wrote: “according to nearly every historian who has written on the subject, the compromise of 1820 would have effected a permanent settlement of the Missouri Controversy if the Missourians had not attempted to insert in their constitution a provision which prevented free Negroes and mulattoes from immigrating to the new state. Actually, it was not the Missourians but the slavery restrictionists who first revived the controversy after the passage of the compromise, and this they did long before the meeting of the Missouri constitutional convention and before any issue relating to free Negroes and mulattoes had arisen. The leadership in the revival of the controversy was assumed by the same general group (though not in all cases the same individuals) which had organized the antislavery meetings in the fall of 1819 – the Federalist and Clintonian philanthropists and politicians of the Middle states.”¹²² The issue was revisited in 1821 when Congress faced the clause in the Missouri constitution that prohibited free blacks from entering Missouri. Clay again led a solution to the crisis by drafting language that the constitution’s language “shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law.. By which any citizen, of either of the states in this Union, shall be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled under the constitution of the United States.” The wording was, wrote historian Robert Pierce Forbes, “a landmark in deliberately obfuscatory legislative language.¹²³ Historian Don E. Fehrenbacher argued that the decision of 1821 “basically obfuscated the question at hand simply to restore peace. By that point, antislavery fervor in Congress was spent, and the relative calm that earlier had characterized congressional discourse on slavery returned.”¹²⁴ The issue of black citizenship would not be resolved until the Civil War.

The Missouri Compromise had been built on a rickety structure of political support. Historian Sean Wilentz argued: “What occurred in 1820 and 1821 was not a genuine compromise so much as it was a cleverly managed political deal, patched together by moderate leaders frightened by the depth of sectional antagonisms, yet unable to achieve genuine sectional accord. By pushing the two halves of the compromise through the house on separate votes, Clay helped to create an exaggerated sense of amity. Antislavery Republican representatives had not at all been cowed by a recalcitrant South, as John Randolph claimed, and neither had their constituents.”¹²⁵ Historian Don E. Fehrenbacher wrote: “In previous debates on slavery in the territories, as we have seen, the constitutional power of Congress had scarcely come into question. But the Tallmadge amendment was more difficult to justify in constitutional terms because it proposed to place on one state a disability not placed on all states. And beyond the question of whether Congress had the power to impose such a discriminatory restriction lay the question of how the restriction could be enforced after Missouri became a sovereign state.”¹²⁶

The arguments of 1820 presaged the arguments of the next four decades. “The discussion on the Missouri question has undoubtedly contributed to weaken in some degree the attachment of our southern and western people to the Union; but the agitators of that question have, in my opinion, not only completely failed; but have destroyed to a great extent their capacity for future mischief,” wrote John C. Calhoun to Andrew Jackson in June 1820. ¹²⁷ Future President Jackson saw the issue clearly, writing a friend in April: “The Missouri question so called, has agitated the public mind, and what I sincerely regret and never expected, but what now I see, will be the entering wedge to separate the union. [I]t is even more wicked, it will excite those who is the subject of discussion [slaves] to insurrection and masacre [sic]. [I]t is a question of political ascendancy, and power, and the Eastern interests are determined to succeed regardless of the consequences, the constitution or our national happiness. [It] will find the southern and western states equally resolved to support their constitutional rights. I hope I may not live to see the evills [sic] that may grow out of this wicked design of demagogues, who talk about humanity, but whose sole object is self agrandisement [sic] regardless of the happiness of the nation.” ¹²⁸ The reality was more complicated than Jefferson’s analysis. Historian Merrill D. Peterson wrote: “No politician could regard the Missouri Question as simply a moral issue. Clay did not. His own anti-slavery principles enabled him to appreciate the higher motives of the restrictionists, however. As a personal matter, he told the restrictionists, he not only opposed slavery in Missouri but would be willing for Congress to confer freedom on any slave henceforth imported into the new state provided there was authority to enforce the decree.”¹²⁹ Clay had postponed but not eliminated a crisis. Historian Walter McDougall wrote: “The events of 1820 made inevitable none of the decisions or flights from decision made by Americans later. It can be said, however, Clay purchased valuable time during which the North industrialized and the Middle West matured.”¹³⁰ Historian Robert Pierce Forbes wrote that “the Missouri controversy can perhaps best be understood as a flash of lightning that illuminated the realities of sectional power in the United States and ignited a fire that smoldered for a generation.” ¹³¹

In the North, Rufus King was closer to the truth when he wrote on March 18 that “the Missouri question...is given out to be settled, but nothing is less true. Its influence will increase, its magnitude.”¹³² Indeed, some northerners saw the measure as a defeat for their antislavery position and restriction of slavery’s expansion: “We have after all our labour & our exertions lost the restriction on the Missouri bill,” wrote New Hampshire Congressman William Plumer, Jr.. “The Southern & Western people talked so much, threatened so loudly, and predicted such dreadful consequences from the success of our measures that they fairly frightened our weak-minded members into an abandonment of this most important & salutary measure.”¹³³

Some saw the Missouri Compromise as a southern victory because Missouri was admitted to the Union. “Following the Missouri Compromise, Americans in general, other than those of a firm antislavery persuasion, seemed to subscribe to a new southern understanding that the Declaration of Independence did not in fact proclaim universal human rights, but rather applied to whites alone,” wrote historian Don E. Fehrenbacher.¹³⁴ 134 “I hasten to inform that this moment WE have carried the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of 36 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members of the Senate of the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States, as a great triumph,” wrote a South Carolina Congressman on March 2. ¹³⁵ Later, Missouri politician Thomas Hart Benton wrote of the southern supporters of the legislation:

This array of names shows the Missouri compromise to have been a Southern measure, and the event put the seal upon that character by showing it to be acceptable to the South. But it had not allayed the Northern feeling against an increase of slave States, then openly avowed to be a question of political power between the two sections of the Union. The State of Missouri made her constitution, sanctioning slavery, and forbidding the legislature to interfere with it. This prohibition, not usual in State constitutions, was the effect of the Missouri controversy and of foreign interference, and was adopted for the sake of peace—for the sake of internal tranquillity—and to prevent the agitation of the slave question, which could only be accomplished by excluding it wholly from the forum of elections and legislation. I was myself the instigator of that prohibition, and the cause of its being put into the constitution—though not a member of the convention—being equally opposed to slavery agitation and to slavery extension. There was also a clause in it, authorizing the legislature to prohibit the emigration of free people of color into the State; and this clause was laid hold of in Congress to resist the admission of the State. It was treated as a breach of that clause in the federal constitution, which guarantees equal privileges in all the States to the citizens of every State, of which privileges the right of emigration was one; and free people of color being admitted to citizenship in some of the States, this prohibition of emigration was held to be a violation of that privilege in their persons. But the real point of objection was the slavery clause, and the existence of slavery in the State, which it sanctioned, and seemed to perpetuate. The constitution of the State, and her application for admission, was presented by her late delegate and representative elect, Mr. John Scott; and on his motion, was referred to a select committee. Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, Mr. John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, and General Samuel Smith, of Maryland, were appointed the committee; and the majority being from slave States, a resolution was quickly reported in favor of the admission of the State. But the majority of the House being the other way. the resolution was rejected, 79 to 83—and by a clear slavery and anti-slavery vote, the exceptions being but three, and they on the side of admission, and contrary to the sentiment of their own State. A second resolution to the same effect passed the Senate, and was again rejected in the House. A motion was then made in the House by Mr. Clay to raise a committee to act jointly with any committee which might be appointed by the Senate, "to consider and report to the Senate and the House respectively, whether it be expedient or not, to make provision for the admission of Missouri into the Union on the same footing as the original States, and for the due execution of the laws of the United States within Missouri and if not, whether any other, and what provision adapted to her actual condition ought to be made by law." This motion was adopted by a majority of nearly two to one—101 to 55—which shows a large vote in its favor from the non-slaveholding States. Twentythree, being a number equal to the number of the States, were then appointed on the part of the House, and were: Messrs. Clay, Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia; Mark Langdon Hill, of Massachusetts; Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia; Henry R. Storrs, of New-York; John Cocke, of Tennessee, Christopher Rankin, of Mississippi; William S. Archer, of Virginia; William Brown, of Kentucky; Samuel Eddy, from Rhode Island; William D. Ford, of New-York; William Culbreth, Aaron Hackley, of New-York; Samuel Moore, of Pennsylvania, James Stevens, of Connecticut; Thomas J. Rogers, from Pennsylvania; Henry Southard, of New-Jersey; John Randolph; James S. Smith, of North Carolina; William Darlington, of Pennsylvania; Nathaniel Pitcher, of New-York; John Sloan, of Ohio, and Henry Baldwin, of Pennsylvania. The Senate by a vote almost unanimous—29 to 7—agreed to the joint committee proposed by the House of Representatives; and Messrs. John Holmes, of Maine; James Barbour, of Virginia; Jonathan Roberts, of Pennsylvania; David L. Morril, of New-Hampshire; Samuel L. Southard, of New-Jersey; Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky; and Rufus King, of New-York, to be a committee on its part. The joint committee acted, and soon reported a resolution in favor of the admission of the State, upon the condition that her legislature should first declare that the clause in her constitution relative to the free colored emigration into the State, should never be construed to authorize the passage of any act by which any citizen of either of the States of the Union should be excluded from the enjoyment of any privilege to which he may be entitled under the constitution of the United States; and the President of the United States being furnished with a copy of said act, should, by proclamation, declare the State to be admitted. This resolution was passed in the House by a close vote—86 to 82—several members from non-slaveholding States voting for it. In the Senate it was passed by two to one—28 to 14; and the required declaration having been soon made by the General Assembly of Missouri, and communicated to the President, his proclamation was issued accordingly, and the State admitted. And thus ended the “Missouri controversy," or that form of the slavery question which undertook to restrict a State from the privilege of having slaves if she chose. The question itself, under other forms, has survived, and still survives, but not under the formidable aspect which it wore during that controversy, when it divided Congress geographically, and upon the slave line. The real struggle was political, and for the balance of power, as frankly declared by Mr. Rufus King, who disdained dissimulation; and in that struggle the non-slaveholding States, though defeated in the State of Missouri, were successful in producing the "compromise," conceived and passed as a Southern measure. The resistance made to the admission of the State on account of the clause in relation to free people of color, was only a mask to the real cause of opposition, and has since shown to be so by the facility with which many States, then voting in a body against the admission of Missouri on that account, now exclude the whole class of the free colored emigrant population from their borders, and without question, by statute, or by constitutional amendment. For a while this formidable Missouri question threatened the total overthrow of all political parties upon principle, and the substitution of geographical parties discriminated by the slave line, and of course destroying the just and proper action of the federal government, and leading eventually to a separation of the States. It was a federal movement, accruing to the benefit of that party, and at first was overwhelming, sweeping all the Northern democracy into its current, and giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect was perceived the Northern democracy became alarmed, and only wanted a turn or abatement in the popular feeling at home, to take the first opportunity to get rid of the question by admitting the State, and re-establishing party lines upon the basis of political principle. This was the decided feeling when I arrived at Washington, and many of the old Northern democracy took early opportunities to declare themselves to me to that effect, and showed that they were ready to vote the admission of the State in any orm which would answer the purpose, and save themselves from going so far as to lose their own States, and give the ascendant to their political adversaries. In the Senate, Messrs. Lowrie and Roberts, from Pennsylvania; Messrs. Morril and Parrott, from New-Hampshire; Messrs. Chandler and Holmes, from Maine; Mr. William Hunter, from Rhode Island; and Mr. Southard, from New-Jersey, were of that class; and I cannot refrain from classing with them Messrs. Horsey and Vandyke, from Delaware, which, though counted as a slave State, yet from its isolated and salient position, and small number of slaves, seems more justly to belong to the other side. In the House the vote of nearly two to one in favor of Mr. Clay's resolution for a joint committee, and his being allowed to make out his own list of the House committee (for it was well known that he drew up the list of names himself, and distributed it through the House to be voted), sufficiently attest the temper of that body, and showed the determination of the great majority to have the question settled. Mr. Clay has been often complimented as the author of the "compromise" of 1820, in spite of his repeated declaration to the contrary, that measure coming from the Senate; but he is the undisputed author of the final settlement of the Missouri controversy in the actual admission of the State. He had many valuable coadjutors from the North—Baldwin, of Pennsylvania; Storrs and Meigs, of New-York; Shaw, of Massachusetts: and he had also some opponents from the South—members refusing to vote for the "conditional" admission of the State, holding her to be entitled to absolute admission— among them Mr. Randolph. I have been minute in stating this controversy, and its settlement, deeming it advantageous to the public interest that history and posterity should see it in the proper point of view; and that it was a political movement for the balance of power, balked by the Northern democracy, who saw their own overthrow, and the eventual separation of the States, in the establishment of geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line. ¹³⁶

In Virginia, of course, the threat to slavery and the South was seen most clearly. The Richmond Enquirer editorialized after the legislation’s passage: “Instead of joy, we scarcely ever recollect to have tasted a bitterer cup. We cannot chuckle over the prospect which this compromise presents to our comprehension. A constitution warped from its legitimate bearings, and an immense region of territory close for ever against the Southern and Western people – such is the ‘sorry sight’ which rises to our view....The Compromise which threw this city and this commonwealth into a flame, and suspended for a week the Electoral Caucus, is consummated. We submit. It is the duty of good citizens to hold by the sheet anchor, the law of the land, so long as it remains a law. We bow to it, though on no occasion with so poor a grace and so bitter a spirit.”¹³⁷ James Madison thought the tempest would pass, writing that “occasional fevers” such as the Missouri legislation ‘are of the transient kind flying off thro’ the surface, without preying on the vitals.”¹³⁸

Historian Leonard L Richards noted that there was some truth to Benton’s argument, writing that “without the South’s seventeen slave seats, the likelihood of Clay putting together a three-vote majority would have been slim at best.”¹³⁹ The North had been aroused by the antislavery movement, but the south had been more aggressive in slavery’s defense. The debate over slavery had been nationalized. “The ‘Compromise’ altered American politics in two fa teful ways,” wrote historian Walter McDougall. “Having tasted northern bile over extension of slavery southern leaders found it almost impossible to countenance any enhancement o f federal power lest in the future it be trained against them. Having heard slavery condemned as evil, southern leaders felt compelled to portray it as a genuine boon while damning northern ‘wage slavery’ as evil.” ¹⁴⁰ Historian Sean Wilentz wrote: “It has been said that had the Civil War broken out over the Missouri controversy, it would have amounted to a brawl on the floors of Congress, with the rest of the nation looking on perplexed. Certainly by 1821, the nation, in its second year of unprecedented hard times, welcomed the end of the congressional quarreling over slavery and the preservation of the Union. So did virtually all of the major figures who would dominate national politics over the coming two decades...Divided over other important issues – especially the questions of banking and economic development raised by the Panic of 1819 – they would prove effective at keeping the slavery issue out of national debates, at least until the early 1830s.”¹⁴¹

Although it resolved the dispute over slavery in the Louisiana Territory, the Missouri Compromise inadvertently undermined other elements of the American System which Henry Clay was developing. Historian Robert Forbes noted that "the Missouri crisis reignited generation-old fears among some slaveholders that the entire project of a strong national government posed a deadly threat to slavery. Coming on the heels of the Supreme Court's ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland, which gave wide latitude to federal power, former anti-Federalists and younger converts to the doctrine of strict construction now adamantly opposed any undertakings by the general government not explicitly stipulated by the Constitution – and even balked at some functions, such as instituting a national tariff, that the document expressly authorizes."¹⁴² Southerners feared that a federal government powerful enough to fund internal improvements would eventually be powerful enough to end slavery. Glover Moore wrote: “Judging by the vote in the Senate and House on the Missouri Compromise of 1820, it would appear that a majority of Southern congressmen were then willing to concede that Congress possessed the power to prohibit slavery in a territory. A considerable minority, however, refused to make even that concession.” ¹⁴³ Rather than pacified, the South was panicked. The Founders in 1787 and the politicians of 1820 were trying to postpone a problem that would not go away. Historian James Roger Sharp wrote: “The Missouri Compromise, which ostensibly solved the issue of slavery in the Louisiana Territory by forbidding it north of 36º 30' latitude, rekindled Southerners’ deep fears about the safety of their peculiar institution and threatened to split the party along sectional lines. John Quincy Adams saw the political crisis arising from the issue as revolutionizing American politics and dividing the country into pro and antislavery parties.”¹⁴⁴ Historian James Schouler wrote:

Viewed from the stand-point of a stern morality, the Missouri compromise must be pronounced a surrender to the slave power, the cowardly abandonment of a cause and occasion for which northern men might as well have drawn the sword then as did their posterity forty years later. But this point of view is not just to the honor and statesmanship of the times. The political evil was inherent in the constitution itself, which brought States slaveholding and non-slaveholding into indissoluble bonds, providing no radical means for assimilating their condition. The anti-slavery spirit of 1776 had died out, or rather had exhausted its power of persuading States to emancipate; a border line separated already the free and slave sections; and to extend that line beyond the Mississippi and perhaps ultimately to the Pacific had at length become a political necessity, with civil war for the most probable alternative. Latitude 36° 30' was not the established parallel throughout, though had Virginia followed the impulse of her better days it might have been, and it fairly marked the division of the Union at the cotton belt. In procuring the establishment of that parallel, freedom gained the first real territorial victory it had won since the adoption of the constitution; for the renown of the Ordinance of 1787 belongs justly to the old Continental Congress. This was a victory worth all the agitation it cost, and securing a new northwest territory to freedom. Whether a greater area might not have been rescued from bondage without hazarding fratricide and disunion we cannot assume to judge; perhaps the north would well have pressed opposition to the Missouri bill, long enough to see whether the south would not yield the whole remnant of the territory, Arkansas included; but it is certain that the Trimble amendment, which offered to test this point, was voted down in the Senate. Nor, in justice to the southern compromisers, should the ambiguous "forever," over which Monroe's cabinet differed so greatly, be taken for trickery. Not a State of this Union which once emancipated ever restored slavery afterwards or made serious attempt to do so; not one of the new States carved out of western territory once pledged to freedom ever deliberately as a State broke the fundamental terms upon which its admission was granted. The real mischiefs which the Missouri compromise engendered were these: the strife for political power between slavery and freedom which it sanctioned and perpetuated upon the broad national domain; the insatiate appetite for foreign acquisitions south of that line, whether by war or purchase, which it whetted; and finally, by suffering an immense State like Missouri, whose population near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers was sure to increase rapidly, to be set above the geographical latitude, the license it gave to the wolves of slavery to ravage among the scattered free soil settlers over its borders. Nevertheless this sectional compact was faithfully sustained for more than thirty years; it was broken at length not by those who had bound themselves to keep it, but by degenerate sons of freedom, by disciples also of the malignant John Randolph school who constantly stirred the south to believe that slavery should accept no territorial restraints at all. That perfidious rupture, as our later history will show, brought the north once more to its feet, as no other aggression of its rights could have done, and re-established party opposition on the geographical line; the south once more opposing its solid phalanx, for the preservation of its common interests, until crushed in the unequal contest thus provoked. Slavery and slaveholders went down in the dust together, and the American constitution became, what it never had been before, a charter of universal freedom.”¹⁴⁵

Ironically for Missouri’s Benton, it was the South, not the North, that would seek to overturn the Missouri Compromise in 1854 with passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the wake of the Missouri Compromise, Georgia’s Howell Cobb said: “You have kindled a fire that all the waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish.”¹⁴⁶ Historian Glover Moore wrote: “So soon as the Missouri Controversy had subsided the public was happy to forget it for a season, and its immediate effect upon political parties was not great. Its significance lay rather in what it clarified and foreshadowed. It was an epitome of the entire sectional controversy between 1860, containing all of the important elements of previous and future antagonisms.” Moore contended that “the Missouri Controversy was the first occasion on which all of the strands in the fabric of North-South sectionalism were brought together and paraded before the public in magnitudinous proportions.” Moore wrote: “In the contest over Missouri foreshadowed the sectional tension of the forties and fifties, it also provided a formula by which this tension might be kept under control. The Missouri Compromise was probably the most satisfactory solution of a difficult problem that could have been devised at the time and under the circumstances.”¹⁴⁷

The Missouri Compromise re-engaged the political energies of the surviving Founders. New York’s Rufus King was one of the few still to be active in Washington. Historian Don E. Fehrenbacher noted: “Outside of Congress, John Jay, also a northern Founding Father of renown, offered an ingenious constitutional argument. Focusing on Article I, Section 9, paragraph 1, relating to Congress’s power to restrict the importation of slaves after 1808, he claimed that Congress could ban the importation of slaves into the state of Missouri specifically.”¹⁴⁸ In subsequent years, however, most historians’ attention focused on the reaction of Thomas Jefferson, whose attitudes toward slavery had always been ambiguous and contradictory. The Missouri Compromise revealed the depth of those contradictions. Fehrenbacher observed: “The strongest opposition to the 36° 30' restriction came from the state of Virginia. Both Virginia senators voted against it, and, in the House of Representatives, eighteen Virginians contributed almost half of all the negative votes. They received emphatic moral support from the two greatest living Virginians. Thomas Jefferson had virtually invented the idea of prohibiting slavery in the American West, but now, thirty-six years later, he opposed the restrictive portion of the Compromise, adducing the ‘diffusion’ argument that the expansion of slavery would ameliorate the condition of the slave.”¹⁴⁹

Historian Garry Wills wrote that after passage of the Missouri Compromise restricting slavery, “Jefferson, in great agitation, denied that Congress had or could have any such power: ‘To Regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a state...is certainly the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the Constitution has taken from then and given to the general government.’ If Congress has no right to exclude slavery in any place where the inhabitants desire it, why did he say it had that right in 1784, when he drafted his Ordinance. Apologists for Jefferson have puzzled over this matter for years.”¹⁵⁰ To former President Jefferson, the Missouri Compromise was an anathema and a political trick by old Federalists. Jefferson’s concept of the nation was under attack. Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager and William E. Leuchtenburg wrote: “Surviving Federalist politicians and Middle-State Republicans saw an opportunity to create a solid North; to ‘snatch the sceptre from Virginia for ever,’ as H. G. Otis said. ‘Federalism, wrote the aged Jefferson, ‘devised this decoy to draw off the weak and wicked from the Republican ranks....The East is replaced in the saddle of government, and the Middle States are to be the cattle yoked to their cart.’” The authors wrote: “When Congress again took up the question, in January 1820, enough Northern Republicans were detached from the anti-slavery bloc by fear of a Federalist renaissance, to get a compromise measure through.”¹⁵¹

Historian Joseph J Ellis wrote: “Missouri made the long-standing paradox of slavery that he had been living so deftly into an undeniable contradiction. He had all along been living a lie.”¹⁵² Missouri demonstrated the inherent contradictions of Jefferson’s beliefs and actions. Ellis wrote: “Or, in the same vein: ‘On the subject of emancipation I have ceased to think because [it is] not to be the work of my day.’ In terms of his legacy, and within the context of the silent sectional agreement shared by the leadership of the revolutionary generation, now passing away, this constituted a confession of failure. The enlightened southern branch of the revolutionary generation, which Jefferson unequivocally headed, had not kept its promise. The Missouri crisis made that unpalatable fact more obvious than ever before and made it more difficult, even for Jefferson, to avoid it unattractive implications.”¹⁵³

In April 1820, Jefferson wrote of the Missouri Compromise: “This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”¹⁵⁴ Historian Darren Staloff wrote: “In Jefferson’s view, the real object of opponents to Missouri’s admission as a slave state was power, pure and simple....In fact, the whole issue smacked of a sectional power grab by the northern states, a mere ‘trick of hypocrisy.’” ¹⁵⁵ In late December, Jefferson wrote his former secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin of the dispersion of slavery: “The Federalists, completely put down and despairing of ever rising again under the old divisions of Whig and Tory, devised a new one of slave-holding and non-slave-holding States, which, while it had a semblance of being moral, as at the same time geographical, and calculated to give them ascendency....Moral the question certainly is not, because the removal of slaves from one State to another, no more than their removal from one country to another, would never make a slave of one human being who would not be so without it. Indeed, if there were any morality in the question it is on the other side; because by spreading them over a larger surface their happiness would be increased, and burden of their future liberation lightened by bringing a greater number of shoulders under it. However, it served to throw dust into the eyes of the people and to fanaticize them, while to the knowing ones it gave a geographical and preponderant line of the Potomac and Ohio, throwing fourteen States to the North and East, and ten to the South and West. With these, therefore, it is merely a question of power; but with this geographical minority it is a question of existence. For if Congress once goes out of the Constitution to arrogate a right of regulating the condition of the inhabitants of the States, its majority may, and probably will, next declare that the condition of all men within the Untied States shall be that of freedom; in which case all the whites south of the Potomac and Ohio must evacuate their States, and most fortunate those who can do it first.” ¹⁵⁶

On February 7, 1820, President Monroe had written Jefferson: “The Missouri question, absorbs by its importance, & the excit'ment it has produc'd, every other & there is little prospect, from present appearances of its being soon settled. The object of those, who brought it forward, was undoubtedly to acquire power, & the expedient well adapted to the end, as it enlisted in their service, the best feelings, of all that portion of our Union, in which slavery does not exist, & who are unacquainted with the condition of their Southern brethren. The same men, in some instances, who were parties to the project in 1786, for closing the mouth of the Mississippi for 25 years, may be consider'd as the Authors of this. The dismemberment of the Union by the Allegheny Mountains, was then believ'd to be their object; and altho' a new arrangement of powers, is more particularly sought on this occasion, yet it is believ'd, that the anticipation, of even that result, would not deter its Authors from the pursuit of it. I am satisfied that the bond of Union, is too strong for them, and that the better their views are understood, throughout the whole Union, the more certain will be their defeat in every part. It requires, however, great moderation, firmness, & wisdom, on the part of those opposed to the restriction, to secure a just result. These great & good qualities, will I trust, not be wanting.”¹⁵⁷

Jefferson wrote Congressman John Homes in April: “A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say, that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?”

I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.¹⁵⁸

It was not Jefferson’s style to get involved in contentious national issues when out of office. He did not like to be involved personally in controversy; he preferred others to do that work. Historian Roger G. Kennedy wrote: “Jefferson, still very much a force in the nation, might have influenced these narrow outcomes but chose not to do so. In fact, he used his influence on the side of the plantation owners, giving as his reason an abhorrence of the prospect of Congress drawing boundaries for slavery. He communicated that severe view to President James Monroe, who may have been a little surprised; as noted earlier, Monroe had been beside Jefferson...during the debates over limiting slavery in 1784, when Jefferson had taken the opposite view. Then, Merrill Peterson assures us, ‘slavery had become in his [Jefferson’s] mind a matter of fundamental national importance overriding questions of local autonomy.’ Then he had supported congressional action to decree ‘that after the year 1800...there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, otherwise than punishment for crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted to have been personally guilty.’”¹⁵⁹ Historian Alf J. Mapp, Jr., noted: “In February, the month in which a Missouri Compromise was attained under Henry Clay’s leadership, Jefferson wrote about slavery in his memoirs. The compromise did nothing to lessen his anxiety because, as he wrote Spencer Roane, the agreement had merely ‘smeared over’ the central issue. So Jefferson, in his memoirs, wrote of American blacks: ‘Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be part pass filled up by free white laborers. If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.’” ¹⁶⁰

Jefferson might think emancipation inevitable, but he opposed the very means to prevent slavery’s extension. Historian Garry Wills wrote that after passage of the Missouri Compromise, “Jefferson, in great agitation, denied that Congress had or could have any such power.”¹⁶¹ In a letter to John Holmes on April 20, 1820, Jefferson wrote: “I had for a long time ceased to read the newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once concieved [sic] and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way, the cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me in a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. but, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one state to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of co-adjutors an abstinence too from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress, to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a state. this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state?”¹⁶²

The threat that Jefferson perceived and feared was not just concerning slavery, but the ghosts of Federalists who had fallen into a shrinking political minority two decades earlier. The former president had a well-developed sensibility to lurking demons. Historian Roger G. Kennedy wrote: “What was the evil he had in mind, we may ask? Was it slavery? If so, why had he done nothing to prevent its spread since 1784? Perhaps the evil he imagined was the presence of people of color, whether slave or free. As noted in earlier pages, Jefferson could not accept the concept of a multiracial society wherein free people of color would coexist with free people of his complexion; he did not share the high opinion of free blacks asserted by ‘noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity.’”¹⁶³ Kevin R. C. Gutzman wrote: “Jefferson’s devotion to the idea of colonizing as many American blacks as possible died only when he did....As Jefferson claimed to understand the matter, extension of the South’s peculiar institution would not increase the number of people held in slavery by even one, so the supposed moral issue involved in the campaign to keep slavery out of Missouri must be a mask for some other motive. He had no difficulty arriving at the conclusion that what lay at the root of anti-Missouri agitation was an attempt by Northern crypto-Federalists to resuscitate their moribund party. This they could achieve, Jefferson argued, by drawing a geographic line between the (minority) slaveholding section and the (majority) free section of the country. The Missouri Crisis was all about Federalist electoral machinations!” ¹⁶⁴

Former President James Madison was also upset by the Thomas Amendment. Madison shared Jefferson’s preoccupation with Rufus King an a crypto-Federalist plot to undermine the Constitution. “It was perhaps predictable that Madison, like Jefferson, Taylor, and other elderly Republican figures, espied a Federalist plot behind the Missouri Crisis,” wrote Madison biographer Kevin R. Gutzman. “King’s prominent role in the anti-Missouri- leadership gave this hypothesis great weight, as King had been the Federalist presidential nominee in both 1812 and 1816.”¹⁶⁵ Madison wrote Monroe: “The inflammatory conduct of Mr. King surprises every one. His general warfare agst. the slave-holding States, and his efforts to disparage the securities derived from the Const. were least of all to be looked for.”¹⁶⁶ Madison wrote President Monroe on February 10 about its political implications: “I find the idea is fast spreading, that the zeal with which the extension (so called) of slavery is opposed, has, with the coalesced leaders, an object very different from the welfare of slaves, or the check to their increase; and that the real object is, as you intimate, to form a new state of parties founded on local instead of political distinctions; thereby dividing the Republicans of the North from those of the South, and making the former instrumental in giving the opponents of both an ascendancy over the whole. If this be the view of the subject at Washington, it furnishes an additional reason for a conciliatory proceeding in relation to Maine.”¹⁶⁷ Ever the political theorist, Madison again wrote James Monroe nearly two weeks later: “As to the right of Congress to apply such a restriction during the territorial period, it depends on the clause specially providing for the management of those subordinate establishments.

On one side it naturally occurs, that the right, being given from the necessity of the case, and in suspension of the great principle of self-government, ought not to be extended further, nor continued longer, than the occasion might fairly require. On the other side, it cannot be denied that the constitutional phrase ‘to make all rules,’ &c., as expounded by uniform practice, is somewhat of a ductile nature, and leaves much to legislative discretion. ¹⁶⁸

The Missouri controversy pushed together the disparate sections of the South into a more cohesive block. Historian George Dangerfield wrote: “In a sense, the Tallmadge Amendment, with its train of town-meetings, pamphlets, editorials, and debates summoned the South into being. No man could have said in 1819 what ‘the South’ was; still less could one have spoken of a typical Southerner. Those who dwelt south of the Mason-Dixon line might have been said to have, perhaps, a kind of climatic fellowship.” ¹⁶⁹ Cotton had changed the economy of the Louisiana Purchase and was undermining the Jeffersonian ideal of a nation of yeoman farmers. Historian Roger G. Kennedy wrote: “The slave population of the Spanish possessions in the Mississippi Valley was confined within the immediate neighborhood of New Orleans and a few plantations along the Mississippi. There was very little agricultural servitude in the villages upriver. Had these enclaves been allowed to shrivel further, the valley might have been organized into free territories instead of slave territories.”¹⁷⁰ It was not to be.

The Missouri Compromise would become Abraham Lincoln’s touchstone in his fight against the extension of slavery in 1854 after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Historian Robert Pierce Forbes wrote: "Lincoln's approach to the question of slavery was carefully circumscribed. Initially, in fact, he stood aloof from the new Republican organization, until convinced that it would eschew abolitionism. Although he claimed to hate slavery as much as the abolitionists, Lincoln's approach to combating it consisted, almost entirely, in restricting it to the boundaries prescribed by the Missouri Compromise. In part, this circumspection reflected Lincoln's understanding of the constitutional limits to interference with slavery; but it was also true that he was confident that to limit slavery's expansion was to condemn it to extinction.”¹⁷¹ Eventually, the conflict over slavery’s expansion would lead to slavery’s demise.

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2. Garry Wills,“Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power, p. 58.
3. William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress, p. 182.
4. Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager and William E. Leuchtenburg, editors, The Growth of the American Republic, Volume I, p. 397.
5. George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, p. 205.
6. James Albert Woodburn. The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise, p. 255.
7. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, Henry Clay, The Essential America, p. 146.
8. Marc Egnal, Clash of Extremes, p. 77.
9. H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: A Life and Times, p. 353.
10. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, p. 223.
11. John C. Waugh, On the Brink of Civil War, p. 9.
12. James Schouler, History of the United States, Volume IV, p. 203.
13. W. Edwin Hemphill, “The Jeffersonian Background of the Louisiana Purchase, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, September 1935, p. 190.
14. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, p. 470.
15. Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, editors, Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism from the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, pp. 82-83 (“Robert P. Forbes, “The Missouri Controversy and Sectionalism”).
16. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, pp. 100-101.
17. Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Presidency of James Monroe, p. 87.
18. Thomas Crump, Abraham Lincoln’s World: How Riverboats, Railroads, and Republicans Transformed America, pp. 112-113.
19. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 18.
20. Leonard Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, p. 52.
21. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, p. 468.
22. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, p. 263.
23. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, p. 468.
24. Junius P. Rodriguez, The Louisiana Territory, p. 228.
25. James Schouler, History of the United States, Volume IV, p. 149.
26. James Schouler, History of the United States, Volume IV, pp. 150-151.
27. James Albert Woodburn, “The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise,” Journal of the American Historical Association, 1894, p. 256.
28. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, pp. 50-51.
29. Carl Schurz, The Life of Henry Clay, p. 172.
30. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 101.
31. Carl Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, Volume I, p. 177.
32. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, pp. 468-469.
33. Leonard Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, p. 53.
34. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, From Sea to Shining Sea: 1787-1837, p. 239.
35. Noble Cunningham, Jr., The Presidency of James Monroe, p. 88.
36. Marc Egnal, Clash of Extremes, p. 74.
37. William O. Blake, The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Ancient and Modern, p. 479.
38. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, p. 469.
39. Daniel Walker Howe, Missouri, “Slave or Free?,” American Heritage, Summer 2010, pp. 21-22.
40. James Albert Woodburn. The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise, p. 256.
41. Horace Greeley, A History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction in the United States, pp. 13-16.
42. Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., Presidency of James Monroe, p. 88.
43. Robert D. Reid, "Review of The Missouri Controversy 1819-1821,” Journal of Negro History, January 1954, p. 66.
44. Shaw Livermore, Jr., The Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegration of the Federalist Party, p. 90.
45. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy 1819-1821, p. 178.
46. Shaw Livermore, Jr., The Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegration of the Federalist Party, p. 89.
47. (Letter from Hugh Nelson to William C. Rives, February 17, 1820).
48. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 104.
49. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, p. 454.
50. Rufus King, Papers Relative to the Restriction of Slavery: Speeches of Mr. King in the House of Representatives, p. 3.
51. James Schouler, History of the United States, Volume IV, pp. 153-155.
52. Marc Egnal, Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War, p. 73.
53. Carl Schurz,Life of Henry Clay, Volume I, pp. 172-173.
54. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 105.
55. James Albert Woodburn, The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise, pp. 256-258.
56. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, pp. 228-229.
57. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, pp. 67-83.
58. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 106.
59. Worthington Chauncey Ford, John Quincy Adams: His Connection with the Monroe Doctrine, p. 80.
60. James Albert Woodburn. The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise, pp. 257-258.
61. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 84.
62. Walter McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner, p. 469.
63. (Letter from James Monroe to George Hay, January 10, 1820).
64. (Letter from Henry Clay to John J. Crittenden, January 29, 1820).
65. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 92.
66. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 85.
67. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 282.
68. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 87.
69. (Letters from William Plumer, Jr. To William Plumer, March 4, 1820).
70. (Letter from James Monroe to George Hay, January 5, 1820).
71. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 92.
72. Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, p. 324.
73. Harry L. Watson, Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America, p. 58.
74. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, p. 59.
75. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, p. 454.
76. Walter A. McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History,, 1585-1828, p. 470.
77. H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: A Life and Times, p. 354.
78. Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, p. 182.
79. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, p. 60.
80. Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, p. 181.
81. Walter A. McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History,, 1585-1828, p. 470.
82. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, pp. 60-61, 63.
83. Allan Nevins, The Diary of John Quincy Adams, p. 103.
84. George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, p. 225.
85. Carl Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, Volume I, pp. 177-182
86. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 89.
87. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 108.
88. Walter A. McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History,, 1585-1828, pp. 470-471.
89. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, pp. 63-64.
90. H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: A Life and Times, p. 355.
91. Leonard L Richards, The Slave Power, p. 78.
92. Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, p. 183.
93. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, pp. 232-233.
94. James Albert Woodburn, The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise, pp. 256-258.
95. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, p. 93.
96. Carl Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, Volume I, pp. 177-182
97. http://college.cengage.com/history/ayers_primary_sources/pickney_speech_congress.htm
98. (Speech of James Barbour, February 1, 1820).
99. Noble Cunningham, Jr., The Presidency of James Monroe, p. 98.
100. James Schouler, History of the United States, pp. 164-165.
101. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, p. 237.
102. (Letter from Henry Clay to Adam Beatty, March 4, 1820).
103. Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, p. 129 (Eulogy of Henry Clay, July 6, 1852).
104. James Schouler, History of the United States, p. 166.
105. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, p. 233.
106. George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, p. 229
107. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, February 19, 1820).
108. Harlow Giles Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, p. 297.
109. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, p. 457.
110. Kevin C. Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America, p. 339.
111. Ellen Mackay (Hutchinson) Cortissoz, Arthur Stedman, editors, A Library of American Literature: Literature of the Republic, Part. 1, 1788-1820, Volume IV, p. 233.
112. Charles Francis Adams, editor, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848, vol. 5, 1875, pp. 11-12.
113. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity, p. 458.
114. Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Presidency of James Monroe, p. 98.
115. (Letter from Charles Yancey to James Barbour, February 9, 1820).
116. (Letter from Henry St. George Tucker to James Barbour, February 11, 1820).
117. (Richmond Enquirer, February 10, 1820).
118. “Missouri Compromise,” The William and Mary Quarterly, July 1901, p. 6.
119. (Letter from Charles Yancey to James Barbour, February 16, 1820).
120. (Letter from Spencer Roane to James Monroe, February 16, 1820).
121. (Letter from George Hay to President Monroe, February 17, 1820).
122. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, p. 129.
123. Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath, p. 118.
124. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, p. 265.
125. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, pp. 236-237.
126. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 103.
127. (Letter from John Calhoun from Andrew Jackson, June 1, 1820).
128. (Letter from Andrew Jackson to A. J. Donelson, April 16, 1820).
129. Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, p. 59.
130. Walter A. McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History,, 1585-1828, p. 472.
131. Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and its Aftermath, p. 5.
132. (Letter from Rufus King to J.A. King, March 18, 1820).
133. (Letter of William Plumer, Jr. To William Plumer, March 4, 1820).
134. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, p. 266.
135. (Letter from Charles Pinckney to unknown, March to 2, 1820).
136. Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ View, pp. 8-10.
137. (Richmond Enquirer, March 7, 1820).
138. (Letter from James Madison to Marquis de Lafayette, November 25, 1820).
139. Leonard L Richards, The Slave Power, p. 80.
140. Walter A. McDougall, Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History,, 1585-1828, pp. 471-472.
141. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, p. 236.
142. Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath, pp. 6-7.
143. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, p. 63.
144. James Roger Sharp, American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis, p. 284.
145. James Schouler, History of the United States, Volume IV, pp. 171-173.
146. http://www.visitthecapitol.gov/Exhibitions/online/1815-to-1851/house-1815-1851/a-fire-bell-in-the-night.html
147. Glover Moore, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821, pp. 343, 350.
148. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, p. 264.
149. Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, p. 110.
150. Garry Wills, “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power, p. 24
151. Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager and William E. Leuchtenburg, editors, The Growth of the American Republic, Volume I, p. 298.
152. Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, p. 270.
153. Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, p. 268
154. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820).
155. Darren Staloff, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding, p. 35
3.
156. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, December 26, 1820).
157. (Letter from James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, February 7, 1820).
158. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820)
159. Roger G. Kennedy, Mr Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase, p. 214.
160. Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim: The Presidency, the Founding of the University and the Private Battle, p. 305.
161. Garry Wills, “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power, p. 24.
162. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Holmes, April 20, 1820).
163. Roger G. Kennedy, Mr Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase, p. 214.
164. Brian R. Dirck, editor, Lincoln Emancipated: The President and the Politics of Race, pp. 61-62 (Kevin R. C. Gutzman, “Abraham Lincoln, Jeffersonian”).
165. Kevin R. Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of Americ, p. 340.
166. (Letter from James Madison to James Monroe, February 23, 1820).
167. (Letter from James Madison to James Monroe, February 10, 1820).
168. (Letter from James Madison to James Monroe, February 23, 1820).
169. George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, p. 204.
170. Roger G. Kennedy, Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase, p. 208.
171. Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath, pp. 284-285.