powerful, populous and enlightened commonwealth, while Illinois must remain an unsettled and feeble waste. When Missouri was admitted her area was 69,416 square miles,population 66,586. At the same time (census of 1820) Illinois contained only 56,650 square miles and 55,162 inhabitants. Now, that is, by the last official reports, Missouri, with 10,000 square miles more of territory, contains 2,168,380 inhabitants and has a debt of sixteen and a half millions of dollars and an assessed valuation of $525,000,000. Illinois, at the same time, contained a population of 3,077,771, with no State debt of any kind, funded or unfunded, and an assessed valuation of $800,000,000. At the present time, four years from the date of the last census, the disparity between the two States, in favor of Illinois, is even greater. Not looking into the future with the eye of wisdom, nor feeling any concern for the principles or the organic laws of their State, the settlers and speculators wrought themselves into a high state of jealousy over the supposed good fortune of Missouri, and at once began systematic agitation, led by their two pro-slavery Senators, in favor of making Illinois also a slave State.

At the election of 1822 this agitation was the chief issue of the campaign. The pro-slaveryites secured the legislature, but, having two candidates for governor, fortunately failed to elect the chief executive, and Edward Coles, a cultivated Virginian who had emancipated his slaves, was chosen by the friends of freedom to that office.

The first move made by the legislature was toward amending the Constitution. The advocates of bondage had the requisite two-thirds vote in the Senate to call a constitutional convention, but lacked one in the House. At the same moment, the designs of the slavocracy included also a plan to elect a pro-slavery United States Senator. One county had two contestants for a seat in the House. One of them would agree, if admitted, to vote for the pro-slavery candidate for United States Senator, but would not vote for the conven

tion. The other favored the convention, but would not vote for the slave Senator.

Now mark the proceedings of the pro-slavery Democracy of Illinois: They admitted the contestant who would vote for their candidate for the Senate, and as soon as they had secured his ballot for that purpose, expelled him and admitted the other!

By this violent and shameless trick the enemies of freedom carried their point. They gained both the Senator and the convention. Believing their success was complete, "with low-bred and indecent effrontery," said Wilson, "they formed a disorderly procession under the lead of the lieutenant-governor, several judges and a majority of the legislature, followed by the rowdy elements about the capital, and with horns blowing and drums and tin pans beating, marched to the residence of the governor to insult him by riotous demonstrations for opposing their schemes to make Illinois a slave State."

What a picture! Yet, what a truthful representation of Democracy!

Newspapers were established, the clergy and women became aroused, mass-meetings were held everywhere in the interest of freedom and the sacredness of the ordinance of 1787. Men who had otherwise been lukewarm were urged to the most earnest efforts by the ferocious methods and brutalizing influence of the slave power, and thus the scheme to introduce slavery was defeated by a decisive majority of the people. That victory forever consecrated Illinois to liberty.

Virginia, although ceding the North-west Territory to the United States, yet retained her claim to Kentucky, a fine, well-timbered region, lying west of her to the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, in which slavery was already firmly established and many of her citizens were permanent and prosperous residents. Therefore no time was lost in erecting Kentucky

into a State, which was admitted into the Union June 1, 1792, with full provision for perpetual bondage.

North Carolina, having also what was considered a valid claim to territory west of her, compromised by ceding Tennessee to the United States in 1789 upon an iron-clad condition that not only permitted hereditary vassalage, but provided that "no regulation made or to be made by Congress" should manumit or "tend to the emancipation of slaves." In 1790 the deed of cession, with all its destructive conditions, was accepted by both houses of Congress. Many members— perhaps more than a majority-were averse to adopting the slavery clause; but knowing that servitude was already well established in the territory, felt forced to yield their consent. Undoubtedly they were wise, as an anti-slavery law would have precipitated a conflict without making Tennessee a free State.

Georgia held her claim to western territory much longer than her sisters, expecting, it is supposed, to enlarge her own boundaries rather than cede to the general government. She therefore clung to the rich cotton and sugar lands now embraced by the limits of Alabama and Mississippi until 1802, when a deed was drafted ceding them to the United States upon condition that the clause in the ordinance of 1787 prohibiting slavery, should not be held to apply to the cession.

On this clause of Georgia's deed arose the first debate in Congress as to the power of that body to prohibit or permit bondage in the territories. It is interesting to note that every Southern and pro-slavery member admitted that such power existed, and might be exercised either way, the only question being that of expediency. Mr. Harper, of South Carolina, declared that the inhibition in the ordinance of 1787 of slavery in the North-west Territory "was proper and wise, but as to Alabama and Mississippi, where the conditions were dif ferent, the contrary was true."

Many years later the representatives from Carolina and other Southern States took the opposite ground and employed volumes of argument to establish the absurd doctrine that no power resided in Congress to regulate or prohibit slavery. The chief representative of this political quackery in the North was Stephen A. Douglas, who labeled his nostrum "squatter sovereignty."

After a season of spirited debate upon the problem of expediency alone, the cession of Georgia's western claim was accepted, the only concession made by the representatives of slavery being that no slaves should be introduced into the territory from beyond the limits of the United States.

Thus, in dividing and consecrating the territory acquired by the United States from Great Britain by the treaty of 1782, five States were devoted to freedom and four to slavery. In soil, minerals, timber and natural productions the two sections were about equal, but in climate that portion given to slavery had every advantage. The area of the five free States is 239,543 square miles; population in 1880, 11,206,668. The area of the four slave States is 180,558 square miles; population in 1880, 5,585,151. The assessed valuation of the five free States is, in round numbers, four and one-quarter billions of dollars; of the four slave States, eight hundred millions of dollars. The debt of the free States is over twelve millions, and that of the slave States over forty millions of doldars. If these are not significant figures, none can be made.

CHAPTER III.

CONSTITUTIONAL SLAVERY-THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

The Arrogant Demands of the Masters-Slaves Must Be Property for One Purpose but Persons for Another-Slavery or No UnionFive Serfs Equal to Three Freemen-The First Public Disgrace -Shabby Treatment of Great Britain-The Louisiana PurchaseThe Price Paid-Organization of Orleans and Missouri-The Great Compromise of 1820-No Slavery Forever North of 36 degrees 30 minutes North Latitude-Maine and Missouri admitted-The Territory of Arkansas-Violated Faith-A Black Picture.

The territory comprising the five free and four slave States mentioned in the preceding chapter was acquired though not all disposed of previous to the formation of our present Constitution. It is hardly necessary to refer to the astounding processes of reasoning and arrogant threats of the masters in the convention which adopted that instrument. They demanded that slaves should be considered "property" so that each State should be the sole judge of dealing with them as it might see fit; that they should be "persons" when it came to congressional representation so that the South might overbalance the North in national Congresses and conventions; that the slave-trade should be permitted untaxed no matter what duty might be laid upon other property imported into the United States, and finally, Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, the ideal embodiment of the pride, tyranny and arrogance of the rising slave power, warned the convention that the "peculiar domestic institution" of the South "must be protected" as the exigencies of the case might demand, or that section would not enter the Union.