Statehood for Missouri Tied to that of Maine

It is not known what politician first suggested the party stroke of forcing this combination of the two bills in one — that the ad mission of Maine should be made dependent upon unconditional admission of Missouri

Continuing The Missouri Compromise,
our selection from The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 16 by James Albert Woodburm published in 1905. The selection is presented in ten easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Missouri Compromise.

Time: 1820

The fact that the Fifteenth Congress left Missouri without authority to organize as a State was the occasion of great excitement among the people of that Territory, and from the adjournment of the Fifteenth Congress to the assembling of the Sixteenth the whole Union was agitated. The legislatures of the States passed resolutions in favor of and against restriction, according to their respective sections, sending copies of these to one another and to the General Government; popular assemblies in all parts of the country debated the question, adopted resolutions, petitioned Congress, and appealed to the public sentiment of the country in whatever demonstration they could use for their cause; the press kept up a continual agitation, and a multitude of pamphleteers entered the field, adding to the momentum and excitement of the great national argument.

Such was the state of the public mind when the Sixteenth Congress assembled, December 6, 1819. Mr. Clay was again elected Speaker. On December 8, 1819, by motion of Scott, of Missouri, the memorial from that State praying for admission was referred to a select committee. On the same day Mr. Strong, of New York, gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill to prohibit the further extension of slavery in the Territories of the United States. On the following day Mr. Scott, chairman of the special committee, all but one of whom were from the slave States, reported an enabling act for Missouri which was read twice and referred to the committee of the whole. At the same time Strong waived his notice of the previous day in view of the fact that the same issue would be presented in the proposed Missouri bill.

The Missouri bill did not again come up in the House till January 24, 1820. On the 26th Mr. Taylor, of New York, offered an amendment requiring that Missouri should ” ordain and establish that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” followed by the usual provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves.

This restrictive amendment was debated, almost daily for nearly a month, until February 19th, when a bill came from the Senate “to admit the State of Maine into the Union,” carrying the whole Missouri bill, without restriction, as a “rider.” A word of retrospect as to Maine: By an act of the State of Massachusetts of June 19, 1819, the people of that part of Massachusetts known as Maine were permitted to form themselves into an independent State. In this instance Massachusetts freely consented to her own division, but these proceedings were to be void unless Maine were admitted to the Union by March 4, 1820. Accordingly, the people of Maine formed a constitution, organized a State government, and petitioned Congress for admission to the Union. Her case was exactly parallel with that of Kentucky, and, as in Kentucky’s case, it was only necessary that the bill admitting Maine should be a brief enactment, “that from and after March 3, 1820, the State of Maine is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America,” and should extend the United States laws over her territory and assign her a fair pro portion of representatives. Ordinarily this simple process of admission would be an easy matter, and but for the issue over Missouri, Maine’s admission would have passed unquestioned. The House had passed an ordinary Maine bill, January 3, 1820. The Senate had already passed a similar bill to a second reading, merely declaring the consent of Congress to Maine’s admission as early as December 22, 1819, the first month of the session. It was not until January 6, 1820, three days after the House Maine bill had come to the Senate, that the scheme of carrying Missouri through on the back of Maine was put into formal shape. On that day the Senate committee having the Maine bill in charge reported it with the Missouri “rider,” but on the 13th the House Maine bill was substituted with the Missouri attachment.

It is not known what politician first suggested the party stroke of forcing this combination of the two bills in one — that the ad mission of Maine should be made dependent upon unconditional admission of Missouri. It is known, however, that Henry Clay gave public approval to the idea two weeks before in the House discussion on the Maine bill.

Holmes expressed the hope, in discussing the bill for Maine, that the question had not gone to the extent of making one distinct measure depend upon another, and that the admission of Maine did not depend upon giving up restriction on Missouri. Clay, in an undertone, said that it did, and then answering Holmes he asserted publicly that he did not intend to give his consent to the admission of Maine until the doctrine of imposing conditions were given up. This was in December, 1819. Clay gave, perhaps, the most plausible statement in defense of a position which is usually regarded only as a politician’s resort of foreing a compensation for doing his duty. “A State in the quarter of the country from which I come,” says Clay, “asks to be admitted to the Union. What say the gentlemen who ask the admission of Maine? Why, they will not admit Missouri without a condition which strips her of an essential attribute of sovereignty. What, then, do I say to them? That justice is due to all parts of the Union; your State shall be admitted free of condition, but if you refuse to admit Missouri also free of condition we see no reason why you shall take to yourselves privileges which you deny to her, and until you grant them also to her we will not admit you. This notion of an equivalent is not a new one; it is one upon which commonwealths and states have acted from time immemorial.”

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