Part 1083

"Mr. Monroe came out, in his first message to Congress, coinciding, on this point, with Mr. Madison's veto. It is due to both of them, however, to say that they were the advocates of internal improvement, and recommended an amendment of the constitution with that view. Nevertheless, Mr. Madison, by his veto, had dashed the cup from the lips to the ground, as he went out of office; and Mr. Monroe coming in, at least for four years, probably for eight—it proved to be eight—broke the cup in advance, so that it could not be used during his term of office, without an amendment of the constitution. … Three presidents successively, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, had officially expressed their opinion adverse to a power vested in Congress by the constitution for projects of internal improvement, as contemplated by the measures proposed. Not satisfied with these decisions, Mr. Clay and his friends were instrumental in having a resolution brought forward, in the fifteenth Congress, declaring that Congress had power, under the constitution, to make appropriations for the construction of military roads, post-roads, and canals. … The resolution declaring the power to be vested in Congress by the constitution, to make appropriations for the construction of military roads, post-roads, and canals, was adopted by a vote of 90 to 75; and the principle involved has been practically applied by acts of Congress, from that time to the present."

_C. Colton, Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay, volume 1, chapter 19._

ALSO IN: _H. G. Wheeler, History of Congress, comprising a History of Internal Improvements, volume 2, page 109, and after._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816-1818. The First Seminole War. Jackson's arbitrary conquest of Florida.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1817. Admission of Mississippi into the Union.

See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1817.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818. Treaty with Great Britain relating to Fisheries.

See FISHERIES: A. D. 1814-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818. Admission of Illinois into the Union.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1819. The Dartmouth College Case.

See SUPPLEMENT: DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821. The first bitter Conflict concerning Slavery. The Missouri Compromise, on the admission of Missouri to the Union.

"On March 6, 1818, a petition was presented in the House of Representatives praying that Missouri be admitted as a state. A bill authorizing the people of Missouri to form a state government was taken up in the House on February 13, 1819, and Tallmadge of New York moved, as an amendment, that the further introduction of slavery should be prohibited, and that all children born within the said state should be free at the age of twenty-five years. Thus began the struggle on the slavery question in connection with the admission of Missouri, which lasted, intermittently, until March, 1821. No sooner had the debate on Tallmadge's proposition begun than it became clear that the philosophical anti-slavery sentiment of the revolutionary period had entirely ceased to have any influence upon current thought in the South.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1776-1808.

The abolition of the foreign slave-trade had not, as had been hoped, prepared the way for the abolition of slavery or weakened the slave interest in any sense. On the contrary, slavery had been immensely strengthened by an economic development making it more profitable than it ever had been before. The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, had made the culture of cotton a very productive source of wealth.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.

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In 1800 the exportation of cotton from the United States was 19,000,000 pounds, valued at $5,700,000. In 1820 the value of the cotton export was nearly $20,000,000, almost all of it the product of slave labor. The value of slaves may be said to have at least trebled in twenty years. The breeding of slaves became a profitable industry. Under such circumstances the slave-holders arrived at the conclusion that slavery was by no means so wicked and hurtful an institution as their revolutionary fathers had thought it to be. … On the other hand, in the Northern States there was no such change of feeling. Slavery was still, in the nature of things, believed to be a wrong and a sore. … The amendment to the Missouri bill, providing for a restriction with regard to slavery, came therefore in a perfectly natural way from that Northern sentiment which remained still faithful to the traditions of the revolutionary period. And it was a great surprise to most Northern people that so natural a proposition should be so fiercely resisted on the part of the South. It was the sudden revelation of a change of feeling in the South which the North had not observed in its progress. 'The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls,' wrote John Quincy Adams. The slave-holders watched with apprehension the steady growth of the Free States in population, wealth, and power. In 1790 the population of the two sections had been nearly even. In 1820 there was a difference of over 600,000 in favor of the North in a total of less than ten millions. In 1790 the representation of the two sections in Congress had been about evenly balanced. In 1820 the census promised to give the North a preponderance of more than 30 votes in the House of Representatives. As the slave-holders had no longer the ultimate extinction, but now the perpetuation, of slavery in view, the question of sectional power became one of first importance to them, and with it the necessity of having more Slave States for the purpose of maintaining the political equilibrium at least in the Senate. A struggle for more Slave States was to them a struggle for life. This was the true significance of the Missouri question. The debate was the prototype of all the slavery debates which followed in the forty years to the breaking out of the civil war. … The dissolution of the Union, civil war, and streams of blood were freely threatened by Southern men, while some anti-slavery men declared themselves ready to accept all these calamities rather than the spread of slavery over the territories yet free from it. … On February 16, 1819, the House of Representatives adopted the amendment restricting slavery, and thus passed the Missouri bill. But the Senate, eleven days afterwards, struck out the anti-slavery provision and sent the bill back to the House. A bill was then passed organizing the Territory of Arkansas, an amendment moved by Taylor of New York prohibiting the further introduction of slavery there having been voted down. … Thus slavery was virtually fastened on Arkansas. But the Missouri bill failed in the fifteenth Congress. The popular excitement steadily increased. The sixteenth Congress met in December, 1819. In the Senate the admission of Missouri with slavery was coupled with the admission of Maine, on the balance-of-power principle that one free state and one slave state should always be admitted at the same time. An amendment was moved absolutely prohibiting slavery in Missouri, but it was voted down. Then Mr. Thomas, a Senator from Illinois, on January 18, 1820, proposed that no restriction as to slavery be imposed upon Missouri in framing a state constitution, but that in all the rest of the country ceded by France to the United States north of 30° 30', this being the southern boundary line of Missouri, there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. This was the essence of the famous Missouri Compromise, and, after long and acrimonious debates and several more votes in the House for restriction and in the Senate against it, this compromise was adopted. By it the slave power obtained the present tangible object it contended for; free labor won a contingent advantage in the future. … 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." But, at the next session of Congress, when the Missouri question was unexpectedly reopened, and as threateningly as ever, Clay assumed a more important part in connection with the final settlement of it. "The bill passed at the last session had authorized the people of Missouri to make a state constitution without any restriction as to slavery. The formal admission of the state was now to follow. But the Constitution with which Missouri presented herself to Congress not only recognized slavery as existing there; it provided also that it should be the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as would be necessary to prevent free negroes or mulattoes from coming into or settling in the state." This provoked a new revolt on the part of the Northern opponents of slavery, and it was only through Clay's exertions as a pacificator that Missouri was conditionally admitted to the Union at length [March 3, 1820], the condition being that "the said state shall never pass any law preventing any description of persons from coming to or settling in the said state who now are, or hereafter may become, citizens of any of the states of this Union." The legislature of Missouri gave its assent, as required, to this "fundamental condition," and the "compromise" became complete. "The public mind turned at once to things of more hopeful interest, and the Union seemed safer than ever. The American people have since become painfully aware that this was a delusion."

_C. Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, chapter 8 (volume 1)._

"The immediate contest was not over the question of the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. The great struggle lasted for nearly three years, but the final proposition which closed the controversy and which prohibited slavery in almost all the then Federal territory was probably not debated more than three hours. It was accepted without discussion by the great bulk of the advocates of Missouri's free admission. Very few slavery extensionists questioned the right and power of Congress to prevent the spread of slavery to the Territories. {3362} That question, in the minds of those who opposed restriction in Missouri, was incidental to the question of the right of Congress to impose conditions upon a State. Incidentally the question of slavery in the Territories came up in the case of Arkansas, a country south of Missouri, in which slavery was already a fact. The restrictionists themselves recognized the fact that the plain, simple issue 'of limiting the area of human slavery would be strengthened by bringing it before the country unincumbered with the question of imposing conditions on a State, though most of them never wavered in their belief that conditions might be imposed. On the one hand it was only Southern zealots who denied to Congress the power to prohibit slavery in the Territories; on the other hand many in the North who opposed slavery believed that Congress might not impose conditions upon a State. In the cabinet of Monroe, in which sat Wirt, Crawford, and Calhoun, it was unanimously agreed that Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. But John Quincy Adams, also a member of that cabinet, who hated slavery with all the strength of his soul, thought it was unconstitutional to bind a State by conditions. … The struggle indicated a notable change in the southern mind on the slavery question, and that a slave power was forming which would attempt to control all legislation of the federal Union affecting slavery. … The struggle and the compromise afford the first clear demarcation between the sections. From this time the equilibrium of political power was a matter of first concern to a section of States and to a powerful political interest. Mason and Dixon's line is extended toward the west, and now marks a political division. The slave States were now, and for the first time, clearly separated from the free. A geographical line dividing the sections was established."

_J. A. Woodburn, Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise (Report of American Historical Association, 1893), pages 289-294._

ALSO IN: _H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 2, chapter 9._

_J. Quincy, Life of John Quincy Adams, chapter 5._

_H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 7._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819. Admission of Alabama into the Union.

See ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819-1821. Acquisition of Florida from Spain. Definition of the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. Admission of Maine into the Union as a State.

See MAINE: A. D. 1820; also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. Ninth Presidential Election.

"Monroe like Washington was re-chosen President by a vote practically unanimous. One, however, of the 232 electoral votes cast was wanting to consummate this exceptional honor; for a New Hampshire elector, with a boldness of discretion which, in our days and especially upon a close canvass, would have condemned him to infamy, threw away upon John Quincy Adams the vote which belonged like those of his colleagues to Monroe, determined, so it is said, that no later mortal should stand in Washington's shoes. Of America's Presidents elected by virtual acclamation history furnishes but these two examples; and as between the men honored by so unapproachable a tribute of confidence, Monroe entered upon his second term of office with less of real political opposition than Washington."

_J. Schouler, History of the United States, chapter 10, section. 2 (volume 3)._

Daniel D. Tompkins was re-elected Vice President.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. The Fourth Census.

Total population, 9,638,191 (an increase exceeding 33 per cent. over the enumeration of 1810), classed and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. Connecticut. 267,161 7,844 97 Illinois. 53,788 457 917 Indiana. 145,758 1,230 190 Maine. 297,340 929 0 Massachusetts. 516,419 6,740 0 Michigan. 8,591 174 0 New Hampshire. 243,236 786 0 New Jersey. 257,409 12,460 7,557 New York. 1,332,744 29,279 10,088 Ohio. 576,572 4,723 0 Pennsylvania. 1,017,094 30,202 211 Rhode Island. 79,413 3,554 48 Vermont. 234,846 903 0 --- --- --- Total 5,030,371 99,281 19,108

South.

White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 85,451 571 41,879 Arkansas 12,579 59 1,617 Delaware. 55,282 12,958 4,509 District of Columbia. 22,614 4,048 6,377 Georgia. 189,566 1,763 149,654 Kentucky. 434,644 2,759 126,732 Louisiana. 73,383 10,476 69,064 Maryland. 260,223 39,730 107,397 Mississippi. 42,176 458 32,814 Missouri. 55,988 347 10,222 North Carolina. 419,200 14,612 205,017 South Carolina. 237,440 6,826 258,475 Tennessee. 339,927 2,727 80,107 Virginia. 603,087 36,889 425,153 --- --- --- Total 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821. Beginning of emigration to Texas.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1819-1835.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1824. The Era of Good Feeling.

With the closing of the war of 1812-14, and the disappearance of the party of the Federalists, there came a period of remarkable quietude in the political world. "Then followed the second administration of Monroe, to which was given, perhaps by the President himself, a name which has secured for the whole period a kind of peaceful eminence. It was probably fixed and made permanent by two lines in Halleck's once famous poem of 'Alnwick Castle,' evidently written during the poet's residence in England in 1822-23. Speaking of the change from the feudal to the commercial spirit, he says: "'Tis what our President Monroe, Has called "the era of good feeling."' … It would seem from this verse that Monroe himself was credited with the authorship of the phrase; but I have been unable to find it in his published speeches or messages, and it is possible that it may be of newspaper origin, and that Halleck, writing in England, may have fathered it on the President himself."

_T. W. Higginson, Larger History of the United States, page 394._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1823. The enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine.

One lasting mark of distinction was given to the administration of President Monroe by the importance which came to be attached to his enunciation of the principle of policy since known as the "Monroe Doctrine." This was simply a formal and official statement of the national demand that foreign nations shall not interfere with the affairs of the two American continents. "There has been a good deal of dispute as to the real authorship of this announcement, Charles Francis Adams claiming it for his father, and Charles Sumner for the English statesman Canning. Mr. Gilman, however, in his late memoir of President Monroe, has shown with exhaustive research that this doctrine had grown up gradually into a national tradition before Monroe's time, and that he merely formulated it, and made it a matter of distinct record. The whole statement is contained in a few detached passages of his message of December 2, 1823. In this he announces that 'the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are not to be considered as subjects for colonization by European powers.' Further on he points out that the people of the United States have kept aloof from European dissensions, and ask only in return that North and South America should be equally let alone. 'We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety;' and while no objection is made to any existing colony or dependency of theirs, yet any further intrusion or interference would be regarded as 'the manifestation of an unfriendly spirit towards the United States.' This in brief, is the 'Monroe doctrine' as originally stated; and it will always remain a singular fact that this President—the least original or commanding of those who early held that office—should yet be the only one whose name is identified with what amounts to a wholly new axiom of international law."

_T. W. Higginson, Larger History of the United States, chapter 16._

"At a cabinet meeting May 13, 1818, President Monroe propounded several questions on the subject of foreign affairs, of which the fifth, as recorded by J. Q. Adams, was this: 'Whether the ministers of the United States in Europe shall be instructed that the United States will not join in any project of interposition between Spain and the South Americans, which should not be to promote the complete independence of those provinces; and whether measures shall be taken to ascertain if this be the policy of the British government, and if so to establish a concert with them for the support of this policy.' He adds that all these points were discussed, without much difference of opinion. On July 31, 1818, Rush had an important interview with Castelreagh in respect to a proposed mediation of Great Britain between Spain and her colonies. The coöperation of the United States was desired. Mr. Rush informed the British minister that 'the United States would decline taking part, if they took part at all, in any plan of pacification, except on the basis of the independence of the colonies.' 'This,' he added, 'was the determination to which his government had come on much deliberation.' … Gallatin writes to J. Q. Adams, June 24, 1823, that before leaving Paris he had said to M. Chateaubriand on May 13, 'The United States would undoubtedly preserve their neutrality provided it were respected, and avoid every interference with the politics of Europe. … On the other hand, they would not suffer others to interfere against the emancipation of America.' … After Canning had proposed to Rush (September 19, 1823) that the United States should coöperate with England in preventing European interference with the Spanish-American colonies, Monroe consulted Jefferson as well as the cabinet, on the course which it was advisable to take, and with their approbation prepared his message. … Enough has been quoted to show that Mr. Sumner is not justified in saying that the 'Monroe doctrine proceeded from Canning,' and that he was 'its inventor, promoter, and champion, at least so far as it bears against European intervention in American affairs.' Nevertheless, Canning is entitled to high praise for the part which he took in the recognition of the Spanish republics, a part which almost justified his proud utterance, 'I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.'"

_D. C. Gilman, James Monroe, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _C. Sumner, Prophetic Voices concerning America, page 157._

_G. F. Tucker, The Monroe Doctrine._

_F. Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the United States, section 57 (volume 1)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824. The Protective Tariff.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824. Tenth Presidential Election. No choice by the People. Election of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives.