Trimble again moved the exclusion of slavery from Arkansas also, but was again voted down, yeas 12, nays 30.
The senate now asked a conference, which the house granted without a division. The committee of conference was composed of Messrs. Thomas, of Illinois, Pinkney, of Maryland, and Barbour, of Virginia, (all anti-restrictionists), on the part of the senate, and Messrs. Holmes, of Massachusetts, Taylor, of New York, Lowndes, of South Carolina, Parker, of Massachusetts, and Kinsey, of New Jersey, on the part of the house. John Holmes, of Massachusetts; from this committee, reported that, 1. The senate should give up the combination of Missouri in the same bill with Maine. 2. The house should abandon the attempt to restrict slavery in Missouri. 3. Both houses should agree to pass the senate's separate Missouri bill, with Mr. Thomas's restriction or compromising proviso, excluding slavery from all territory north and west of Missouri. The report having been read, the first and most important question was put, viz: "Will the house concur with the senate in so much of the said amendments as proposes to strike from the fourth section of the [Missouri] bill the provision prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude in the contemplated state, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes?" On which question the yeas and nays were demanded and were as follows:
Yeas, for giving up restriction on Missouri. — Massachusetts, 4; Rhode Island, 1; Connecticut, 2; New York, 2; New Jersey, 3; Pennsylvania, 2; Delaware, 1; Maryland, 9; Virginia, 22; North Carolina, 12; South Carolina, 9; Georgia, 6; Alabama, 1; Mississippi, 1; Louisiana, 1; Kentucky, 8; Tennessee, 5. Total from free states, 14; from slave states, 76 — in all 90.
Nays, against giving up the restriction on slavery in Missouri. — New Hampshire, 6; Massachusetts, including Maine, 16; Rhode Island; Connecticut, 4; Vermont, 6; New York, 22; New Jersey, 3; Pennsylvania, 21; Ohio, 6; Indiana, 1; Illinois, 1. Total 87 — all from free states.
Mr. Taylor, of New York, now moved an amendment, intended to include Arkansas territory under the proposed inhibition of slavery west of Missouri; but this motion was cut off by the previous question, and the house proceeded to concur with the senate in inserting the exclusion of slavery from the territory west and north of Missouri, instead of that just stricken out, by 134 yeas to 42 nays, (the nays being from the south). So the bill was passed in the form indicated above; and the bill admitting Maine as a state, (relieved, by a conference, from the Missouri rider,) passed both houses without a division, on the following day.
Thus was consummated a measure which, while it opened the door to slavery in Missouri, was to exclude it "forever" from all that territory lying north of 36° 30' north latitude. Randolph, the leader of the ultra southern party, indignantly denounced it as a "dirty bargain," and the northern men who voted for it, as "dough-faces." Before signing the bill, President Monroe submitted the question to his cabinet, "Has congress the constitutional power to prohibit slavery in a territory? "All the cabinet declared themselves in the affirmative, though neither Crawford, Calhoun, nor Wirt could see
