Jefferson Cries Wolf in the Night? 3

In his book The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America, Robert Pierce Forbes argues persuasively that Thomas Jefferson’s April 22, 1820 “fire bell in the night” letter to John Holmes – previously discussed here and here – was, let us say, a trifle disingenuous.

Apart from the fact that the letter conveniently catapulted Holmes, a loyal Republican, to the United States Senate, Forbes notes that other contemporaneous Jefferson correspondence is free of the doom-and-gloom predictions the letter contains. In fact, what stands out is that the tone of Jefferson’s letters depends on the identity of the recipient. “Jefferson reserved his tone of fatalism for northerners and anticompromise southerners.”

Procompromise confidantes like president James Monroe heard a different message from the Sage of Monticello. Forbes cites, for example, a letter that Jefferson wrote three weeks later to the president. In the letter, dated May 14, 1820, Jefferson gushed about the nation’s future prospects (emphasis added):

Dear Sir,

—Your favor of the 3d is received, and always with welcome. These texts of truth relieve me from the floating falsehoods of the public papers. I confess to you I am not sorry for the non-ratification of the Spanish treaty. Our assent to it has proved our desire to be on friendly terms with Spain; their dissent, the imbecility and malignity of their government towards us, have placed them in the wrong in the eyes of the world, and that is well; but to us the province of Techas will be the richest State of our Union, without any exception. Its southern part will make more sugar than we can consume, and the Red river, on its north, is the most luxuriant country on earth. Florida, moreover, is ours. Every nation in Europe considers it such a right. We need not care for its occupation in time of peace, and, in war, the first cannon makes it ours without offence to anybody. The friendly advisements, too, of Russia and France, as well as the change of government in Spain, now ensured, require a further and respectful forbearance. While their request will rebut the plea of proscriptive possession, it will give us a right to their approbation when taken in the maturity of circumstances. I really think, too, that neither the state of our finances, the condition of our country, nor the public opinion, urges us to precipitation into war. The treaty has had the valuable effect of strengthening our title to the Techas, because the cession of the Floridas in exchange for Techas imports an acknowledgement of our right to it. This province moreover, the Floridas and possibly Cuba, will join us on the acknowledgement of their independence, a measure to which their new government will probably accede voluntarily. But why should I be saying all this to you, whose mind all the circumstances of this affair have had possession for years? I shall rejoice to see you here; and were I to live to see you here finally, it would be a day of jubilee. But our days are all numbered, and mine are not many. God bless you and preserve you muchos años.

Forbes correctly observes, “Nothing in Jefferson’s boldly activist letter to Monroe reveals any trace of pessimism for the nation’s prospects.”

Likewise, Forbes points to Jefferson’s letter to his old friend the Marquis de Lafayette dated December 26, 1820, in which Jefferson described “Missouri” as involving little more than political posturing and “noise”:

With us things are going on well. The boisterous sea of liberty indeed is never without a wave, and that from Missouri is now rolling towards us, but we shall ride over it as we have over all others. It is not a moral question, but one merely of power. Its object is to raise a geographical principle for the choice of a president, and the noise will be kept up till that is effected. All know that permitting the slaves of the south to spread into the west will not add one being to that unfortunate condition, that it will increase the happiness of those existing, and by spreading them over a larger surface, will dilute the evil everywhere, and facilitate the means of getting finally rid of it, an event more anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than by the noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity. In the meantime, it is a ladder for rivals climbing to power.

To antislavery men and northerners, however, Jefferson purported to convey fear and uncertainty. In a letter written on December 26, 1820 – the same day that he wrote to Lafayette – to Pennsylvanian Albert Gallatin, “a pronounced Republican opponent of slavery then serving as U.S. minister to France," Jefferson reverted to pessimism, clearly designed to persuade the influential Gallatin to support and lobby for compromise. Although the Missouri question was nothing but a Federalist plot, it had stirred up a hornets’ nest, and secession was not out of the question unless cooler heads prevailed (emphasis and paragraph breaks added):

But nothing has ever presented so threatening an aspect as what is called the Missouri question. 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, was at the same time geographical, and calculated to give them ascendency by debauching their old opponents to a coalition with them. 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 United 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.

And so far this crisis seems to be advancing. The Missouri constitution is recently rejected by the House of Representatives; what will be their next step is yet to be seen. If accepted on the condition that Missouri shall expunge from it the prohibition of free people of color from emigration to their State, it will be expunged, and all will be quieted until the advance of some new State, shall present the question again. If rejected unconditionally, Missouri assumes independent self-government, and Congress, after pouting awhile, must receive them on the footing of the original States. Should the Representatives propose force, 1, the Senate will not concur; 2, were they to concur, there would be a secession of the members south of the line, and probably of the three Northwestern States, who, however inclined to the other side, would scarcely separate from those who would hold the Mississippi from its mouth to its source.

What next? Conjecture itself is at a loss. But whatever it shall be you will hear from others and from the newspapers; and finally the whole will depend on Pennsylvania. While she and Virginia hold together, the Atlantic States can never separate. Unfortunately, in the present case she has become more fanatisized than any other State. However useful where you are, I wish you were with them. You might turn the scale there, which would turn it for the whole. Should this scission take place, one of the most deplorable consequences would be its discouragement of the efforts of the European nations in the regeneration of their oppressive and cannibal governments. Amidst this prospect of evil I am glad to see one good effect. It has brought the necessity of some plan of general emancipation and deportation more home to the minds of our people than it has ever been before, insomuch that our governor has ventured to propose one to the Legislature. This will probably not be acted on at this time, nor would it be effectual; for, while it proposes to devote to that object one-third of the revenue of the State, it would not reach one-tenth of the annual increase.

My proposition would be that the holders should give up all born after a certain day, past, present, or to come; that these should be placed under the guardianship of the State, and sent at a proper age to St. Domingo. They are willing to receive them, and the shortness of the passage brings the deportation within the possible means of taxation, aided by charitable contributions. In these I think Europe, which has forced this evil on us, and the Eastern States, who have been its chief instruments of importation, would be bound to give largely. But the proceeds of the land office, if appropriate to this, would be quite sufficient.

God bless you, and preserve you multos años.

Likewise, in yet another letter written on December 26, 1820 (seems to have been a busy catch-up day!), “to his old friend David Baillie Warden, an Irish Presbyterian encyclopedist and dedicated opponent of slavery and racism,” Jefferson sounded similar themes:

But nothing disturbs us so much as the dissension lately produced by what is called the Missouri question: a question having just enough of the semblance of morality to throw dust into the eyes of the people, & to fanaticise them; while with the knowing ones it is simply a question of power. The Federalists, unable to rise again under the old division of whig and tory, have invented a geographical division which gives them 14. states against 10. and seduces their old opponents into a coalition with them. Real morality is on the other side. For while the removal of slaves from one state to another adds no more to their numbers than their removal from one country to another, the spreading them over a larger surface adds to their happiness and renders their future emancipation more practicable.

Jefferson Cries Wolf in the Night? 2

A long time ago, I began to discuss Thomas Jefferson's famous 1820 "fire bell in the night" quote concerning the threat presented by slavery. I want to revive the topic and evaluate the quote by looking at the context.

As I noted in my earlier post, the quote comes from a letter that Jefferson sent on April 22, 1820, about seven weeks after the first Missouri crisis had been resolved by the passage of bills that called for the admission of Maine as well as Missouri as new states, and provided that slavery would not be permitted in the Louisiana Purchase territory (other than the future state of Missouri) above 36 degrees 30 seconds north latitude (which latitude formed the southern border of Missouri). Why did he send this after-the-fact correspondence to an addressee who is now virtually unknown? For that matter, who on Earth was John Holmes, anyway?

The identity of the addressee is in fact one clue as to Jefferson’s motivation and purpose in sending the letter. John Holmes, it turns out, was a former Federalist turned Republican politician from the Maine "district" of the state of Massachusetts. For our purposes, the most important thing to know about Holmes is that he served in the House of Representatives as a representative of the Maine district of Massachusetts from March 1817 until he resigned on March 15, 1820 as Maine was about to be admitted as a new state. Three months later, on June 13, 1820, the newly-assembled Maine legislature elected Holmes as one of the state’s first United States Senators.

During the first Missouri crisis, southerners in Congress, irate over northern refusal to admit Missouri as a slave state, tied the pending admission of Maine to the admission of Missouri. It would therefore be logical to think that Mainers would have favored Missouri’s admission in order to realize their long-sought ambition of statehood.

In fact, a large number of Mainers (like Timothy Claimright, whose views I recently discussed) took exactly the opposite view. They favored restriction (i.e., restricting slavery in Missouri) and were furious when they learned that slave interests were holding their own statehood, the merits of which no one questioned, hostage to Missouri’s admission. Determined not to give in to what they perceived to be blackmail, many insisted that their representatives stand firm on Missouri.

John Holmes appeared to be well-positioned to take advantage of this popular outrage. As a delegate to the Maine constitutional convention in the fall of 1819, he had opposed a proposal to exclude black men from the vote:

I know of no difference between the rights of the negro and the rights of the white man; God Almighty has made none; our [Massachusetts] declaration of rights has made none. That declares that “all men (without regard to color) are born equally free and independent.”

When Congress assembled in December 1819, it was Holmes who notified the House that Maine had completed all prerequisites to admission. He soon learned, however, that Maine’s admission was being held hostage to Missouri – and he was outraged. Initially, he protested that the admissions of the two states were “wholly unconnected” and suggested (albeit with some circuitous language) that he “should forfeit the chance of Maine rather than forfeit my opinion.”

By New Year’s day, 1820, however, he was backtracking, apparently endorsing the proposition that “it would be best that the Mother should have twins this time.” Soon after, he convinced another Maine District congressman to join him in supporting Missouri’s unrestricted admission.

Holmes presumably expected that his position would be understood and supported as a reluctant necessity. He was wrong. He soon discovered “that Maine’s citizens considered the move to extend slavery an outrage,” and that he and colleague Mark Langdon Hill (whom Holmes had converted) were the only members of the seven-man Maine District delegation to support Missouri's unrestricted admission. He also “came under withering attack in the northern press and on the floor of Congress.”

By the end of January 1820, Holmes was virtually alone, detested by many of his constituents, and in deep political trouble. Quoting from letters of William King, Maine’s leading politician (and soon to be its first governor), to his half-brother Rufus King of New York, Robert Pierce Forbes has summarized the political landscape as follows:

“In the attempt to associate the admission of Maine and Missouri together,” William [King] wrote his half brother, “the motive is so apparent, that it has excited general disgust in this State.” Maine’s citizens desired statehood, but only “on terms honorable & correct . . . they will not, I am sure, consent to bargain their way along let the consequence be what it may.” John Holmes was the only member of the Maine delegation intending to vote with the South, William informed his brother; “it is hardly fair to judge his motives, altho’ opinions are expressed freely on the subject.” . . . “Mr. Holmes’ course is generally complained of here, and I am inclined to think his constituents will not be disposed to overlook his present conduct.”

When the final vote came on March 2, 1820, Holmes and Mark Hill were the only two members of the Maine District delegation to vote in favor of the Compromise. Holmes, returning to Maine hoping to be elected one of the state's first Senators, instead met "anger and vilification at home for his part as the arch-doughface of the Missouri capitulation."

Jefferson's fire bell letter to Holmes -- in which the revered founding father "tender[ed] the offering of my high esteem and respect" to Holmes "as the faithful advocate of the Union" -- proved to be a godsend:

It could be argued that nothing less than an endorsement from the author of the Declaration of Independence himself could have salvaged Holmes's political career in Maine. Fortunately for him, [Holmes] had exactly that. . . . Armed with this powerful document by the founder of their party, with its forecast of doom for the infant nation, Holmes secured election as one of Maine's first senators from the new state's chastened Republican legislature.

Democrats and Whigs on Citizens and Citizenship

In his excellent book, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America, Harry L. Watson comes up with a wonderful insight into one difference between Democrats and Whigs. Democrats, Watson points out, emphasized complete equality between citizens; some citizens were not more equal than others. As a result, Watson argues, Democrats tended to view citizenship as an all-or-nothing proposition, and they shrank the boundaries of citizenship correspondingly to encompass only white males, who could truly be equals. Many Whigs, on the other hand, regarded citizenship as involving a "gradation of rights and responsibilities". That in turn permitted at least some to be more inclusive when defining should be entitled to be regarded as a citizen:

If Whigs were unwilling to grant full rights to "unqualified" immigrants, their acceptance of human inequality made them more willing than Democrats to accord partial rights to blacks and Indians. Instead of treating manhood and full citizenship as indivisible, Whigs could envision a gradation of rights and responsibilities ranging from one end of the social scale to the other. Edward Everett thus maintained that "the wholly untutored white man is little better than the wholly untutored red man," while the Whig editor of the American Review declared that "free institutions are not proper to the white man, but the courageous, upright and moral man." Democrats tended to oppose any suffrage rights for nonwhites, but even Southern Whigs could occasionally support the right to vote for free blacks who could pass requirements such as a property test.

It seems to me that the conflicting understandings of Roger Taney, a Democrat, and Benjamin Curtis, a Whig, concerning the meaning of the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the Dred Scott case perfectly illustrates Watson's hypothesis. Taney maintained that free blacks could not possibly be citizens because they would then be entitled to all the "privileges and immunities" of citizens, which he defined to include specific rights. Curtis, conversely, disagreed with Taney precisely because he did not accept Taney's premise that "privileges and immunities" were a specific set of rights. For Taney's argument and understanding of "privileges and immunities", see my discussion here. For Curtis, see here.

About the illustration:

A comic scene representing two New York city political factions, the Whigs and the radical Democrats (or "Loco Focos"), as scuffling newsboys. The scene takes place before the half-built Customs House, where several newsboys and a black chimney sweep are gathered watching a scrap involving a ragged youth selling "loco foco" matches and another newsboy. The match-seller raises his fist and threatens, "Oh! you d---d Whiggy." The latter, striking him, "I'll loco poke you." On the left three of the newsboys hold Democratic newspapers the "New York Evening Post" and the "New Era," and a copy of radical reformer Frances ("Fanny") Wright's lectures. One says, with a sidelong glance at the unfortunate match-seller, "I told him he had better not fight." The chimney sweep taunts them, "Does Fanny know you're out?" On the right, a second group of newsboys, holding copies of Whig journals, the "Transcript, Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, Gazette," and the "Evening Star," cheer on the winning fighter.

"Wot a south paw he has given me!"

I ran across an 1848 illustration that is interesting both because it includes Millard Fillmore and because it contains an early use of the term "south paw".

Yahoo Answers asserts that the term "southpaw", referring to left-handed pitchers, dates back to 1885, but notes that "south paw 'a person's left hand' is attested from 1848 in the slang of pugilism." If so, the illustration apparently records one of the first uses of the term. Bowery B'hoy Lewis Cass (the Democratic presidential candidate in 1848) has decked poor Millard (the Whig nominee for vice president). Lying on the ground with a black eye, Millard cries out, "Curse the Old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!"

All of which raises the question: was Lewis Cass left-handed?

The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition

Iowahawk strikes again!

D-Day

Thanks.

They Both Make Cheese, I Suppose

Back in the early 1970's the original National Lampoon magazine had a hilarious article that purported to be a newsletter of an organization devoted to exposing the nefarious conspiracy by the Dutch to dominate the world. Although I'm not sure, it was probably "Americans United to Beat the Dutch," from the April 1973 "Prejudice" edition. My recollection is that the pseudo-newsletter featured a towering figure, who looked like an evil version of the Dutch Boy Paint boy, standing menacingly astride the globe, about to kick it over with one of his pointed wooden shoes.

I mention this only because the article came to mind when I read Harry L. Watson quoting North Carolina Whig Senator Willie P. Mangum (emphasis added):

Some Whigs, notably New York Governor William Seward, made strenuous efforts to appeal to immigrant voters and to meet their legitimate needs. More commonly, Whigs tended to reject those whom North Carolina Senator Willie P. Mangum called "the bandit of the Apennines, the mercenary Swiss, the hungry loafer of the cities of the Old World, the offal of the disgorged jails, penitentiaries, and houses of correction of foreign countries."

Anna Ella Carroll

Although I had not heard of her, the Wikipedia entry for Anna Ella Carroll, mentioned in my last post, is very intriguing. A Maryland Whig and Know-Nothing (and Fillmore supporter in 1856!), she freed her slaves, opposed secession, supported Lincoln and allegedly forwarded intelligence of Confederate plans.

Most interesting probably to Civil War buffs, in 1861 Carroll allegedly investigated and advocated the use of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers as an invasion route into Tennessee, the basis for Grant's Forts Henry and Donelson campaign, and later in the War advised Lincoln on colonization and emancipation. I don't vouch for the Wikipedia description of her role, but here it is:

In the fall of 1861, Carroll traveled to St. Louis to work with secret agent, Judge Lemuel Dale Evans, who had been appointed by Secretary of State William H. Seward, to assess the feasibility of an invasion of Texas. Carroll worked on her second war powers paper at the Mercantile Library where she sleuthed out information from the head librarian who was Confederate General Joe Johnston’s brother. She took military matters into her own hands when she initiated an interview with a riverboat pilot Capt. Charles M. Scott about the feasibility of the planned Union Mississippi River expedition. Scott informed her that he and other pilots thought the advance ill conceived due to the fact that there were many defensible points on the Mississippi River that could be reinforced and it could take years just to open it up to navigation. Carroll then questioned Scott about the feasibility of the use of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers for a Union invasion. Scott provided Carroll technical navigation details. Based on this information Carroll wrote a memorandum that she sent to Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott and Attorney General Edward Bates in late November 1861, advocating that the combined army-navy forces change their invasion route from the Mississippi to the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Scott took the plan to Lincoln who deemed the plan viable, although no actual documentary evidence of this meeting exists. Evidence indicates that on the advice of Senator Benjamin F. Wade, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Lincoln appointed Edwin Stanton secretary of war in January 1862 to implement the Tennessee River plan. Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin, on the other hand, argues in her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, that Lincoln chose Stanton to replace the crooked Simon Cameron on the advice of Secretary of State William Henry Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, surprising the entire Cabinet with his selection, having consulted no one but Seward and Chase, the latter of whom claimed full credit for the choice of Stanton.

Meanwhile in St. Louis, Major General Henry W. Halleck was planning the same movement without Lincoln’s knowledge. Upon learning that Confederates were possibly sending reinforcements west from Virginia, Halleck ordered Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote to immediately move on Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in a telegram dated January 30. Scott was dispatched to the Midwest to mobilize reinforcements for Halleck on the night of January 29. On February 6, Fort Henry fell to Foote’s gunboats and on February 13, Fort Donelson fell to Grant’s and Foote’s combined forces. These comprised the first two “real victories” of the Civil War for the Union as Gen. William Sherman wrote later. Thus Carroll’s submission was critical to providing needed reinforcements for Grant and to gaining Stanton the appointment as secretary of war. At the time Carroll’s role in the effort was kept secret, and immediately following the war, she herself gave credit for the plan to Capt. Charles Scott in a letter printed in a leading Washington newspaper, but years later Assistant Secretary of War Scott and Senator Wade testified to it before Congress.

During the remainder of the war, Carroll worked with Lincoln on issues pertaining to colonization and emancipation. She and Aaron Columbus Burr lobbied him to establish a colony of freedmen in British Honduras, today Belize. Although Carroll had freed her own slaves, she lobbied Lincoln against issuing the Emancipation Proclamation fearing that support of Southern Unionists would be lost and resistance to the Union would be stiffened. But, she wrote that Lincoln did have the constitutional right to free the states as a temporary war measure under his power as commander-in-chief, since the proclamation would help cripple the organized forces of the rebellion. Yet the measure was not a transfer of title and would have to be suspended once the war emergency ended. To free the slaves required a constitutional amendment.

Wikipedia further asserts that the empty chair at the right of the painting at the top of this post, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1864) is "believed by some to be an allusion to Carroll."

Millard and Franklin

If you think my fixation on Millard Fillmore is odd, pity poor David C. at Lugubrious Drollery, who's obsessed with Franklin Pierce!

Although I would adamantly maintain that the two men were utterly dissimilar, a quick search turned up a dissent: an 1856 book by one Anna Ella Carroll entitled A Review of Pierce's Administration; Showing Its Only Popular Measures to Have Originated with the Executive of Millard Fillmore. Take that, Frank!

About the illustration:

The artist belittles the Democrats' relatively undistinguished choice for presidential nominee in 1852, Franklin Pierce. The cartoon is based on Aesop's fable about the mountain which, being in labor, groaned so dreadfully as to arouse the attention of multitudes of onlookers, only to send forth a small mouse. Aesop so reproved those who through rumors, promises, and other great pretentions raise the expectations of mankind only to disappoint by meager performance. The cartoonist's analogy is to the Baltimore Democratic Convention of June 1852, which selected Pierce, a relatively obscure New Hampshireman, as its presidential nominee. Pierce, as a mouse, scurries from a small hole at the base of New Hampshire's White Mountains at right. At the lower left a bobcat, Whig candidate Winfield Scott, crouches behind the rocks, saying, "Come this way, my little fellow, I'm watching for you!" At right, a swan representing Free Democratic candidate John P. Hale floats by on a stream. In the background, on the far side of the mountains is a crowd of men, the "Baltimore Convention." One declares, "After all, this is rather a small affair of ours!" Another replies, "Very true: and there is the more necessitty for making great noise about one little mouse." "White Mountains in Labour" probably appeared in late summer or early autumn 1852, since Hale was not nominated until the Free Democrats' August convention.

Andrew Jackson and the Removal of the "Deposites"

In the spring of 1833, Andrew Jackson had a problem. You wouldn’t think so. Recently inaugurated to a second term as president, Jackson had concluded his first term with a flourish. During the summer and fall of 1832 he had rallied public opinion and defeated attempts to extend the life of the Monster Bank – The Second Bank of the United States – whose charter was set to expire in 1836. Then, although the noxious Henry Clay had managed to stick his nose in and walk away with some of the credit, Jackson had vanquished those treasonous Nullifiers and saved the Union.

And yet, the Monster was “only scotched, not dead.” The Bank's president, Nicholas Biddle still had three years to bribe members of Congress into extending the charter. In a way, Jackson had inadvertently made the wounded Monster all the more dangerous. With the federal debt about to be paid off – an achievement of which Jackson was enormously proud – and with the tariff to remain high for years to come as part of the deal that resolved the Nullification Crisis, enormous amounts of cash would soon be accumulating – and that money would go straight into the vaults of the Monster, which acted as the depositary for federal tax receipts under its 1816 charter. Biddle would no doubt use that money to influence legislators with direct and indirect bribes. In this way, he might be able snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and the other National Republicans were in Biddle’s pocket and his willing tools. More troubling, Jackson’s own Democrats were not entirely reliable. First, Congress had failed to act for years on Jackson’s proposal for an Independent Treasury. As early as December 1830, Jackson had proposed that a branch of the Treasury Department be authorized to hold government funds as well as private funds without engaging in the ugly, corrupting business of banking. The Independent Treasury would pay for itself by charging for “bills of exchange” (basically, checks). It had the further potential to reign in the excesses of state banks, which issued notes far in excess of their capital and then refused to redeem them for hard cash (specie) in bad times, by accepting their notes only “so long as they continue to be redeemed in specie.” Jackson had outlined his proposal as follows in his December 6, 1830 message to Congress:

In the spirit of improvement and compromise which distinguishes our country and its institutions it becomes us to inquire whether it be not possible to secure the advantages afforded by the present bank through the agency of a Bank of the United States so modified in its principles and structures as to obviate constitutional and other objections.

It is thought practicable to organize such a bank with the necessary officers as a branch of the Treasury Department, based on the public and individual deposits, without power to make loans or purchase property, which shall remit the funds of the Government, and the expense of which may be paid, if thought advisable, by allowing its officers to sell bills of exchange to private individuals at a moderate premium. Not being a corporate body, having no stock holders, debtors, or property, and but few officers, it would not be obnoxious to the constitutional objections which are urged against the present bank; and having no means to operate on the hopes, fears, or interests of large masses of the community, it would be shorn of the influence which makes that bank formidable. The States would be strengthened by having in their hands the means of furnishing the local paper currency through their own banks, while the Bank of the United States, though issuing no paper, would check the issues of the State banks by taking their notes in deposit and for exchange only so long as they continue to be redeemed with specie. In times of public emergency the capacities of such an institution might be enlarged by legislative provisions.

Jackson’s proposal had fallen on deaf ears. Year after year, Congress had failed to act on it. An Independent Treasury, Jackson understood, was not an option for the foreseeable future.

The second troubling circumstance was the fact that, in the fight to kill the Monster the previous summer, the Democratic Congress had virtually stabbed Jackson in the back. At the beginning of July 1832, the Democratic Congress had passed a bill to recharter the Bank by large margins. Jackson had won that war, but only by vetoing the abominable legislation and issuing a powerful veto message that rallied the People to him and made Congress hesitant to override.

Then, at the end of the most recent session, in response to Jackson’s demand for an investigation of the Bank’s safety and soundness, the Democratic-controlled House had concluded by a vote of over 2-to-1 (109-46) that the Bank was sound and the government’s deposits safe. Congress had swatted aside Jackson’s attempt to defang the Monster by legislative means. The fact that the ever trustworthy James K. Polk had issued a powerful minority report provided Jackson with little comfort.

In this way, Congress had demonstrated its unreliability and eliminated legislative options for finishing off the Monster. Was there nothing Jackson could do?

There was one option, but it was not going to be easy. Congress had adjourned the day before Jackson’s re-inauguration and would not assemble again until the beginning of December 1833. Jackson would have to make his move over the summer, before the new legislature, no doubt floating in Biddle’s “loans” and favors, could do any more harm.

Jackson’s idea was this. The 1816 act chartering the Bank provided that federal deposits could be removed from the Bank by the Secretary of the Treasury. The provision, Section 16, was probably intended to cover situations where the Bank was no longer a safe depositary, but the actual language didn’t say that. In fact, the provision said virtually nothing:

SEC. 16. And be it further enacted, That the deposits of the money of the United States, in places in which the said bank and branches thereof may be established, shall be made in said bank or branches thereof, unless the Secretary of the Treasury shall at any time otherwise order and direct; in which case the Secretary of the Treasury shall immediately lay before Congress, if in session, and if not, immediately after the commencement of the next session, the reasons of such order or direction.

This was not the ideal solution. Since no Independent Treasury existed, the funds would have to be placed in state banks. There was the danger that the state banks would use the funds to justify the issuance of increased amounts of those detested and unreliable bank notes. But at least the Monster would be slain. And the state banks were far less powerful than the Monster, and would be susceptible to pressure from the federal government. The federal government could, in effect, restrain some of the excesses of the state banks by careful selection and by making clear that the government would immediately withdraw funds from any bank that suspended specie payments.

Yes, there would be hell to pay. Jackson would be called a dictator and a tyrant. Biddle's corrupt agent, Clay, would trot out the tired assertions that he was “King Andrew”, acting without Congressional sanction and in fact in defiance of the House’s clearly-expressed determination that the Bank was safe. Some disloyal Democrats, encouraged by Bank largesse, would no doubt follow suit. But the danger was grave, and Jackson was the People’s representative. Indeed, he was the only official elected by the vote of all the People. He had a mandate to slay the Monster, and would honor that mandate and protect the People.

There remained, however, a practical problem: the Cabinet. The statute provided that the Secretary of the Treasury, not Jackson himself, had to issue any order directing the transfer of funds from the Bank. When sounded out in the spring of 1833, the current Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane, had made clear that he was reluctant to do so.

And there was also trouble with the current Secretary of State, Edward Livingston. Livingston, who held the senior and most visible position in the Cabinet, had done an outstanding job helping to rout the Nullifiers, but he was susceptible to the lure of commerce. He had gone so far as to indicate that, if Jackson removed deposits from the Monster, he would likely resign. In fact, the whole Cabinet appeared soft on the issue, except for the reliable Roger B. Taney, who was serving as Attorney-General. Thus, an attempt to force the issue might well result in an embarrassing round of highly-publicized Cabinet resignations.

Jackson had already experienced one Cabinet disaster, and he was not going to go through that again. Except for good old Martin Van Buren, his original Secretary of State, the members of his first Cabinet had defied Jackson’s orders and disloyally snubbed the virginal Peggy Eaton, and Jackson had had to fire them all. Jackson had lost valuable time and been made a laughingstock. Not twice.

There was, however, a solution that might kill two birds with one stone. He could pack Livingston off on a prestigious overseas mission. That in turn would allow him to kick McLane upstairs, to Livingston’s vacated position at State, where he would be out of the way. And that, in turn, would allow Jackson to select a new Treasury Secretary, one who would be more compatible with Jackson’s views on banks and the Monster in particular.

And Jackson knew the perfect man for the job. William J. Duane of Pennsylvania, a respected Democratic editor and politician from Pennsylvania, was a veteran of the bank wars. Going back to early years of the century, Duane had been a leading member of the anti-bank, hard-money “Old School” wing of the state’s Democratic-Republicans. In that role, he had fought vigorously against the intrigues of state-chartered banks in the Pennsylvania legislature.

At first, all went like clockwork. On May 29, 1833, Livingston vacated State and was hustled on to a ship bound for France as minister plenipotentiary; McLane ascended from Treasury to State; and Duane was installed at Treasury. Jackson was ready to make his move. There would be a huge ruckus, but Jackson could take the heat.

The best-laid plans often go awry, and so it happened here. Part of the problem seems to have been the messengers and manner of communication. Rather than take Duane into his confidence and explain his plans directly to him at the outset, Old Hickory acted through intermediaries. Duane’s first visitor, Reuben M. Whitney, had once sat on the Monster’s Board of Directors until Biddle kicked him off. Only then had Whitney turned against the Bank. Duane, probably correctly, took him for an agent of the state banks drooling to get their hand on the deposits. Later visits by Whitney and Jackson friend, editor and kitchen cabinet member Amos Kendall, only worsened the situation. Kendall, then nominally Duane’s employee in the Treasury, told Duane to get with the program. Duane did not take it well. He was Secretary of the Treasury, not some clerk.

The other, interrelated part of the problem seems to have been a substantive misunderstanding created by the president’s failure to explain himself to Duane. The new Treasury Secretary was no pro-Monster National Republican in disguise. Ironically, the problem was that Duane was the ultimate Jacksonian: he disliked all banks. Having cut his teeth fighting the corruption of state banks, he distrusted them as much as he despised Biddle and his Monster. But Jackson’s plan, he saw, promised to funnel huge amounts of cash to these irresponsible and corrupting institutions (one of whose agents was trying to strong arm him), which would use the funds to generate unsupported notes and irresponsible speculation. Jackson’s cure was as bad as the disease.

Jackson, as we have seen, was not blind to such reasoning. It was for that reason that he would have preferred his original Independent Treasury proposal, in which the federal government would have held tax receipts itself. Moreover, Jackson thought that he would be able to curb the worst excesses of the state depositary banks by threatening to withdraw the government funds if they failed to agree to certain conditions. At all events, it was the best plan available under the circumstances, and certainly better, Jackson thought, than the alternative.

Duane, unfortunately, was not privy to Jackson’s reasoning and plans, or his persuasive powers. During the summer, while Duane stewed in Washington, Jackson embarked on a triumphal tour of New England – and promptly fell ill. For his part, Jackson, receiving reports from Kendall of Duane’s stonewalling, was utterly perplexed by Duane’s apparent disloyalty. How or why could so ardent an anti-bank man rebel and resist killing the Monster? They were ships passing in the night.

The standoff continued for three months, with Duane resisting ever more adamant pleas and instructions by Kendall and others to issue the transfer order. By the time the president got personally involved and tried to explain his position to Duane, it was too late. Duane, offended and now convinced of a state bank plot, would not be budged.

By September 1833, the volatile president had had enough. He wanted the transfer order issued well in advance of the beginning of the new Congress, and time was running out. The one member of his Cabinet who was clearly reliable on the Bank issue was the Attorney General, Roger B. Taney. Jackson directed Taney to draft a memorandum, in the president’s name, justifying the removal of deposits. The document was designed “to communicate . . . the final conclusions, of his [Jackson’s] own mind, and the reasons on which they are founded, in order to put them in durable form, and to prevent misconceptions.” Jackson read the paper to his Cabinet on September 18, 1833, and it later became the basic blueprint for the administration’s defense of its actions when an irate Congress assembled in December. (Taney’s letter to Congress justifying his actions, dated December 3, 1833, is here.)

The defense set forth in the paper was multi-layer. First, citing the absence of language requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to make any findings, Jackson and Taney argued that the Secretary’s discretion was unlimited. At most, the fact that Section 16 required the Secretary to “lay before Congress . . . the reasons of such order or direction” meant only the Secretary needed to have (as we would say today) some rational basis for his action:

The power of the secretary of the treasury over the deposites [sic] is unqualified. The provision that he shall report his reasons to congress, is no limitation. Had it not been inserted, he would have been responsible to congress, had he made a removal for any other than good reasons, and his responsibility now ceases, upon the rendition of sufficient ones to congress. The only object of the provision, is to make his reasons accessible to congress, and enable that body the more readily to judge of their soundness and purity, and thereupon to make such further provision by law as the legislative power may think proper in relation to the deposite of the public money.

At all events, the memorandum argued, there was a good reason for the removal. The Monster was now set to expire in 1836. An orderly transition would require years, and that meant it had to begin now:

It is but a little more than two and a half years to the termination of the charter of the present bank. It is considered as the decision of the country that it shall then cease to exist, and no man, the president believes, has reasonable ground for expectation that any other bank of the United States will be created by Congress. ... It is obvious that any new system which may be substituted in the place of the bank of the United States, could not be suddenly carried into effect on the termination of its existence without serious inconvenience to the government and the people. Its vast amount of notes are then to be redeemed and withdrawn from circulation, and its immense debt collected. These operations must be gradual, otherwise much suffering and distress will be brought upon the community. It ought to be not a work of months only, but of years, and the president thinks it cannot, with due attention to the interests of the people, be longer postponed. It is safer to begin it too soon than to delay it too long.

The memorandum also served as one last plea to Duane and the rest of the cabinet to understand Jackson’s reasoning and to carry out the course upon which he had settled. To me, the tone is surprisingly un-Jacksonian. The president is virtually begging his subordinates to appreciate and adopt his point of view:

Far be it from [the President] to expect or require, that any member of the cabinet should at his request, order or dictation, do any act which he believes unlawful, or in his conscience condemns. From them and from his fellow citizens in general, he desires only that aid and support, which their reason approves and their conscience sanctions.

In the remarks he has made on this all important question, he trusts the secretary of the treasury will see only the frank and respectful declarations of the opinions which the president has formed on a measure of great national interest, deeply affecting the character and usefulness of his administration; and not a spirit of dictation, which the president would be as careful to avoid, as ready to resist. Happy will he be, if the facts now disclosed produce uniformity of opinion and unity of action among the members of the administration.

The president again repeats that he begs his cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own, in the support of which he shall require no one of them to make a sacrifice of opinion or principle. Its responsibility has been assumed, after the most mature deliberation and reflection, as necessary to preserve the morals of the people, the freedom of the press and the purity of the elective franchise, without which all will unite in saying that the blood and treasure expended by our forefathers in the establishment of our happy system of government will have been vain and fruitless. Under these convictions, he feels that a measure so important to the American people cannot be commenced too soon; and he therefore names the first day of October next, as a period proper for the change of the deposites [sic], or sooner, provided the necessary arrangements with the state banks can be made.

Duane was still not persuaded. Remarkably, he both refused to give the order and refused to resign. On September 22, 1833 he was terminated and on the next day Taney was appointed the acting Secretary of the Treasury – Jackson’s third in just under four months.

Taney acted quickly. Three days later, on September 26, 1833, he began issuing instructions that future tariff receipts should be deposited with specified state banks. His first letter, to the Collector at Philadelphia, provided as follows:

SIR: Believing that the public interest requires that the Bank of the United States should cease to be the depository of the money of the United States, I have determined to use the State banks as places of deposites; and have selected for that purpose, in the city of Philadelphia, the Girard Bank.

You will, therefore, present the enclosed draft of a contract to that bank; and, upon the execution of the contract, you will forward it to this department. You will ask the aid of the District Attorney of the United States, who will see that the contract is executed in due form under the corporate seal. The contract being executed, you will then deposite all of the public money which may come to your hands after the thirtieth day of this present month of September, in the bank above mentioned, until the further order of this department. You will also deposite in the said bank, for collection, all the bonds which may hereafter be taken for the payment of duties.

You will also call on the Bank of the United States at Philadelphia, and receive from it all bonds hereafter given to the United States, which are payable on or after the first day of October next, and deposite [sic] them for collection in the aforesaid State bank. I send you, herewith, an order on the Bank of the United States for that purpose.

When the contract shall have been executed by the State bank, you will forward the enclosed letters to the collectors, at Bridgetown, Burlington, Great Egg harbor, and Little Egg harbor, who have heretofore deposited the money received by them in the Bank of the United States.

You will continue to deposite as usual, in the Bank of the United States, until the thirtieth of this present month of September, inclusive.

You will keep a copy of the contract executed by the bank, and, from time to time, advise this department of any thing you may deem material to the public interest, connected 'with the change of the deposites [sic].

About the illustration at the top of the post:

An anti-Jackson satire, critical of the President's federal treasury policy and of Vice-President Van Buren's influence on the administration's fiscal program. The print specifically attacks Jackson's plan to discontinue federal deposits in the Bank of the United States, and his "experiment" of placing them in selected state banks instead. The artist employs the image of a ship, a contemporary symbol of commerce, to forecast the ruination of American trade as a result of these measures. Jackson stands on a platform near the stern of the ship "Experiment," wielding a whip over eight crewmen who sit at spinning wheels. The ship is moored and upturned barrels sit on top of each of its three masts. A broom is tied to the foremost one, indicating that it is for sale. Rats scurry about the deck. Martin Van Buren stands behind Jackson near a padlocked door to the hold marked "Deposits" and "No Bank." A second ship burns in the distance. The various sailors comment: "Shiver my timbers Bob, if we ain't overrun with these blasted "Rats --" they eat up all our rations! I wish old Veto there, would drive 'em all overboard with little Martin at the head of them." "I say Jack I'm damn'd if this is like getting fifteen dollars a month is it?" "No, No, Shipmate, curse these spinning Jennies, its work only fit for lubbers and old women." "There is the old Constitution burning up! Her owners having no further occasion for her and cant afford to keep her in repair!" "Well what's the use of a Ship war? She's meant to protect "Commerce," but we've got none to protect!" Jackson: "No grumbling you lazy dogs! Perish commerce! perish trade! Andrew Jackson knows what's best for the Country, By the Eternal, Don't I Martin?" Van Buren: "To be sure you do if you mind what I tell you - Don't give up the ship General or I shall not succeed you!"

"To be coupled with slaves, [Maine] will never agree"

I believe several readers reside in the great state of Missouri (and I spent a few years there myself), so hope they forgive me if I point out some of the abuse that the territory and its residents took during the Missouri Crisis.

Exhibit No. 1 is the poem reproduced above, entitled Maine Not to Be Coupled with the Missouri Question (click to enlarge and read). It was apparently composed by one Timothy Claimright of Brunswick, Maine in January 1820. Mr. Claimright, clearly upset that his state's admission was being held hostage to Missouri's, vented his spleen upon that state, where people "live in a bog . . . they grope in a fog . . . they wallow in mire, O'erwhelm'd with musquitoes . . . Fill'd with agues." Mr. Wainright also took pointed shots at slavery: "They too lazy for work, drive slaves, whom they fear; . . . Tho' lock'd up, they dream of slaves, whom they dread; . . . And without their slaves, how long would it take To shell enough corn to purchase one hake?"

Exhibit No. 2 is a nice summary of contemporary gibes against Missouri assembled by Glover Moore. Spurred by reports of violence in Missouri against restrictionists, northern publications portrayed the territory as a slaveocratic version of Dodge City and Tombstone:

Thereafter Missouri became the target of many a gibe and witticism. . . . Federalist and Clintonian newspapers regaled their readers with hair-raising stories of Missouri mob violence and lawlessness -- accounts of duels, personal encounters with dirk and pistol, St. Louis ladies who wore and wielded dirks, fights between boatmen, broken bones, noses bitten off, attacks by slaveholders on ministers, floggings, and Negro mistresses (one of whom went on a rampage and flogged her white paramour, who thereupon committed suicide in humiliation).

A resident of Pittsburgh who had been considering moving to Missouri took the precaution to write to the editor of the St. Louis Gazette to ask if it was true that the people of St. Louis wore dirks and pistols, "and consequently, a man's life is in continued danger."

As an aside, the reference in the poem to "a King of her own" is to William King. The half-brother of Preston King, William King was the principal proponent of statehood for Maine and the state's first governor after admission.

Play that Bandjeau, Earl!

Wikipedia asserts that our word "banjo" derives from an African language, or perhaps Italian. How about French? Glover Moore quotes an article from the February 15, 1820 edition of the Georgetown [District of Columbia] Metropolitan that uses a French, or pseudo-French, spelling, and associates the instrument with slaves in New Orleans and Louisiana:

That our slaves are ill-treated, no man who has ever looked around him will assert. See them in their quarters -- See them in the interior of Louisiana -- see them in the town of Orleans, assembled on the levee, after their work is done, and a sad face among a groupe of negroes will be found as rare, as courteous language in the London Courier towards this country -- the Violin and Bandjeau are ever in tune, and tripping it lightly to the air of their favorite song "Massa, Misses, kill a duck," they are more heedless of the morrow than . . . ourselves.

The Missouri Compromise: Rufus King and the Higher Law

Compare and contrast:

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator if the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.

William Seward, 1850

I have yet to learn that one man can make a slave of another -- if one man cannot do it, no number of individuals can have any better right to do it, and I hold that all laws or compacts imposing such a condition upon any human being are absolutely void because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his way known to man, and is paramount to all human control.

Rufus King, 1819.

The Missouri Compromise: Glover Moore Spots Floyd Shoemaker Spotting Henry Geyer

In a recent post, The Missouri Compromise: Henry Geyer Spots a Flaw, I discussed Floyd Calvin Shoemaker's assertions that Henry Clay's compromise resolution resolving the second Missouri Crisis of 1821 may have inadvertently referred to the wrong paragraph of the Missouri Constitution of 1821, and the role that this mistake may have played in the willingness of the Missouri legislature to pass the "solemn act" required by the resolution.

The hawk-eyed Glover Moore was apparently also aware of Mr. Shoemaker's book and credited his observations. Here's Moore's take (paragraph breaks added):

The condition of admission imposed upon Missouri did not specifically refer to free Negroes and mulattoes. It merely provided that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution of Missouri should never be construed to exclude citizens of another state from the benefit of the privileges and immunities granted them by the federal Constitution.

In the copy of the Missouri constitution which Congress had in its possession, the fourth clause . . . was the provision regarding the migration of free Negroes and mulattoes. [I would say Moore is wrong here; it was the fourth paragraph of the oddly-formatted section.] As the constitution was printed in Missouri, however, the fourth clause . . . referred to something else.

Because of this fact, some Missourians thought that Congress had made an error and had designated the wrong clause. They were willing to agree to the condition of admission, since they considered it to be meaningless as stated by Congress.

Moore cites Shoemaker's book, a contemporary newspaper report, and (for those of you with access to research libraries) Lucien Carr, "An Error in the Resolution of Congress admitting Missouri into the Union," in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Second Series, XIII (1900), 448-54.

Indiana : Indianapolis :: Missouri : ???

I was amused to discover that, according to Glover Moore, in or about 1821 Missouri considered naming its state capital "Missouriopolis." Out-of-state reviews were not good, with one restrictionist newspaper suggesting "Slave-opolis" or "Black-opolis" instead. I assume that the idea was dropped for other reasons.

Talk Talk

This song has amazed me for decades.

The Road to the Road to Gettysburg

At TOCWOC, Brett Schulte recently announced that he and bloggers at a number of other sites will be posting their ten favorite Gettysburg books. As I told Brett privately, I haven't even read ten Gettysburg books. I'll therefore contribute in my own idiosyncratic way, by providing a list of my ten favorite books on the period leading up to the Civil War. Let's call it, "The Road to the Road to Gettysburg."

Warning: Violent, Pornographic Bat Book

A friend gave me this book on bats. Very good. The photos really are amazing.

But what makes the book blog-worthy is the fact that it has a warning on the back cover:

CAUTION: PARENTAL GUIDANCE REQUIRED

This book has been written for adults. It contains explicit descriptions and illustrations dealing with the mating behavior of bats. Bats are mammals and their mating behavior may be compared to human behavior.

There are also photos showing living bats being eaten alive by snakes. Blood-sucking behaviors, and other sensitive areas, are covered in great detail. These may be objectionable to adults and children alike.

Now who wouldn't want a book like that?

The Missouri Compromise: Henry Geyer Spots a Flaw

While rummaging for information about the Missouri Compromise, I stumbled across a 1916 book by one Floyd Calvin Shoemaker entitled Missouri’s Struggle for Statehood 1804-1821. In it, the author makes a claim that I’ve seen nowhere else. I don’t vouch for it, but it’s a fascinating piece of trivia if true.

You may recall that the version of Section 26 of Article III of the Missouri Constitution delivered to Washington in 1820 contained some odd punctuation and paragraph breaks, as follows:

The general assembly shall have no power to pass laws; First, For the emancipation of slaves without the consent of their owners, or without paying them, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for such slaves so emancipated; and, Second, To prevent bona fide emigrants to this state, or actual settlers therein, from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of their territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be slaves, so long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as slaves by the laws of this state.

They shall have power to pass laws; First, To prohibit the introduction into this state of any slave who may have committed any high crime in any other state or territory; Second, To prohibit the introduction of any slave for the purpose of speculation, or as an article of trade or merchandise; Third, To prohibit the introduction of any slave, or the offspring of any slave, who heretofore may have been or who hereafter may be, imported from any foreign country into the United States, or any territory thereof, in contravention of any existing statute of the United States; and, Fourth, To permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, saving the rights of creditors, where the person so emancipating will give security that the slave so emancipated shall not become a public charge.

It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be necessary.

First, To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in, this state, under any pretext whatsoever; and,

Second, To oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity, and to abstain from all injuries to them extending to life or limb.

Henry Clay’s compromise resolution resolving the second Missouri crisis, in turn, referred to the provision exhorting the Missouri legislature to bar “free negroes and mulattoes” from the state as “the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the [Missouri] constitution.”

Presumably, the reference to the “fourth clause” of Section 26 was intended to point to the fourth paragraph of the oddly-paragraphed Section (“First, To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to, and settling in, this state, under any pretext whatsoever . . .”). But the fact is that that sentence was not the fourth “clause” of Section 26.

Shoemaker asserts that, during the course of the debates in the Missouri legislature concerning whether and how to respond to Clay’s proviso, Henry S. Geyer, then Speaker of the Missouri House, pointed out this discrepancy and argued that Missouri legislators could agree that the “fourth clause” did not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause because the “fourth clause” in fact had nothing to do with barring “free negroes and mulattoes”:

In the course of the debate, Geyer "stated a fact not generally known – That the clause mentioned in the Resolution of Congress is not the one concerning free negroes and mulattoes. There are but three principle clauses in the twenty-sixth section of the third article, and the only clause distinguished as a fourth – is the last subordinate branch of the second principal clause and provides that the General Assembly shall have power, to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them saving the rights of Creditors, where the persons so emancipating will give security that the slave so emancipated will not become a public charge. – But counting the clauses of the twenty-sixth section without reference to the numbers thereto attached and the fourth clause, will be that which gives the General Assembly power “To prohibit the introduction of any slave for the purpose of speculation, or as an article of trade or merchandise."

Shoemaker does not exactly assert that Geyer’s argument made the difference between passage or defeat of Missouri’s resolution purporting to comply with Clay’s resolution. But he does suggest that the argument at least made the majority in support far larger than it might otherwise have been:

[After Geyer’s argument, t]he bill and preamble were then agreed to by a large majority and reported from the committee of the whole without amendment. In this form it passed the House and was sent to the Senate.

* * *

When the resolution of Congress was considered by the general assembly of Missouri, there was opposition to passing the solemn public act. It is impossible to say accurately how strong was this opposition. Some objected to the wording of the solemn public act, others to the entire condition imposed by Congress. At this juncture Henry S. Geyer, Speaker of the House, later United States Senator from Missouri, in a speech advocating the passage of the solemn public act, pointed out that the clause in the Missouri constitution designated by Congress was not the free negro and mulatto clause to which that body objected. . . . Following this revelation by Geyer, the solemn public act passed by a large majority.

The Missouri Compromise: Missouri's "Sarcastic and Defiant" Compliance

By way of reminder, Henry Clay’s compromise resolution ending the second Missouri Crisis called for the admission of Missouri, “Provided, that the legislature of the said state, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of the said state to the . . . fundamental condition”

that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution submitted on the part of said state to Congress, shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, by which any citizen, of either [any?] 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 . . .

Glover Moore reports that, “In June 1821, the Missouri legislature made the promise which Congress desired but expressed it in such sarcastic and defiant language that the ire of the antislavery press was again aroused.” Although Moore did not quote Missouri’s language, you may be sure that his description made me determined to find it, and here it is. I really like the way it is entitled a "Solemn Public Act”, thus mocking the resolution:

A SOLEMN PUBLIC ACT, declaring the assent of this State to the fundamental condition contained in a resolution passed by the Congress of the United States, providing for the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union on a certain condition.

Whereas, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, by their resolution approved on the second day of March, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twenty-one, did declare that Missouri shall be admitted into this Union, upon an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, upon the fundamental condition, that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution, submitted on the part of said State to Congress, shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, 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; provided, that the legislature of the said State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of said state, to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the U. States, on or before the fourth Monday in November next, an authentic copy of the said act; upon the receipt whereof, the President, by proclamation shall announce the fact, whereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress, the admission of said state into this Union shall be considered as complete.

Now, for as much as the good people of this state have by the most solemn and public act in their power, virtually assented to the said fundamental condition, when by their representatives in full and free convention assembled, they adopted the constitution of this state, and consented to be incorporated into the Federal Union, and governed by the constitution of the United States, which among other things provides that the said constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or law of any state to the contrary notwithstanding; and although this general assembly are of opinion that the congress of the United States have no constitutional power to annex any condition to the admission of this state into the federal Union, and that this general assembly have no power to change the operation of the constitution of this state, except in the mode prescribed by the constitution itself; Nevertheless, as the congress of the United States have desired this general assembly to declare the assent of this state to said fundamental condition, and forasmuch as such declaration will neither restrain, or enlarge, limit or extend the operation of the constitution of the United States, or of this state, but the said constitutions will remain in all respects as if the said resolution had never passed, and the desired declaration was never made, and because such declaration will not divest any power or change the duties of any of the constituted authorities of this state, or of the United States, nor impair the rights of the people of this state, or impose any additional obligation upon them, but may promote an earlier enjoyment of their vested federal rights, and this state being moreover determined to give to her sister states, and to the world, the most unequivocal proof of her desire to promote the peace and harmony of the Union, Therefore, Be it enacted and declared by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, and it is hereby solemnly and publicly enacted and declared,

That this state has assented and does assent that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution of this state, shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, by which any citizen of either of the United States shall be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to which such citizens are entitled under the constitution of the United States.
Approved, June 26, 1821.

Moore archly describes the denouement:

President [James] Monroe, less squeamish than [Theodore] Dwight and [Robert] Walsh and happy to be rid of a vexatious problem, proclaimed the final admission of Missouri on August 10, 1821.

The Missouri Compromise: So Much For a Sacred Compact

The second session of the Sixteenth Congress opened on November 13, 1820. The “debate centered chiefly in the House, since there could be no doubt that the Senate would be favorable to the immediate admission of Missouri.” The south would vote solidly in favor, and it was clear that there we sufficient northern senators to provide a substantial majority.

In the House, the Missouri constitution was formally presented on November 16, 1820 and referred to a select committee, which reported in favor on November 23, 1820. On December 13, 1820, after prolonged debate, the House rejected the committee’s recommendation by a vote of 79-93, divided sectionally as follows:

In Favor Against

North 5- 92
South 74- 1

“It was now clear to everyone,” Glover Moore observes, “that the Missouri question would dominate the second session of the Sixteenth Congress as effectively as it had the preceding one.”

A subsequent vote provides a clear picture on how northern representatives regarded the compromise. Rep. Rollin C. Mallary of Vermont “sought to tack on . . . an amendment requiring Missouri to provide for the gradual abolition of slavery before entering the Union.” The amendment was defeated, with solid southern opposition, by a vote of 61 to 107. But almost two-thirds of northern representatives supported the amendment (61-34). Moore comments:

Thus by a two to one majority the representatives from the free states repudiated the Missouri Compromise within less than a year after its adoption. It is not surprising that they should do this, however. They had never been in favor or the compromise and did not, like some of their descendants, regard it as sacrosanct. Rather, they considered it an undesirable piece of legislation which they would gladly repeal if they could.

After months of acrimonious debate, Henry Clay’s meaningless but face-saving compromise resolution attracted sufficient numbers of northern votes to resolve the second phase. That resolution provided "for the admission of the state of Missouri into the Union, on a certain condition":

Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That Missouri shall be admitted into this Union on an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatever, upon the fundamental condition, that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution submitted on the part of said state to Congress, shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, by which any citizen, of either [any?] 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: Provided, that the legislature of the said state, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of the said state to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United States, on or before the fourth Monday in November next, an authentic copy of the said act; upon the receipt whereof, the President, by proclamation, shall announce the fact; whereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress, the admission of the said state into this Union shall be considered as complete.

Yet even at the end, an overwhelming majority of northern representatives – almost 80% of those voting – refused to hold their noses and vote in favor:

In Favor Against

North 18- 80
South 69- 1

I Gain New Insight

And Now, Some Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros - Við spilum endalaust - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

And here's how to pronounce the name