prohibiting the further introduction of slavery into the State, which, after a fortnight's debate, was defeated by 27 nays to 16 yeas.
The debate in the Senate was of unusual interest and splendor. It was especially illustrated by an effort of transcendent power from that great lawyer and orator, William Pinkney. Recently returned from a succession of missions to foreign courts, and at this time the acknowledged chief of the American bar, particularly skilled in questions of constitutional law, his course as a Senator from Maryland was calculated to produce a profound impression. In a speech which drew to this Chamber an admiring throng for two days, and which at the time was fondly compared with the best examples of Greece and Rome, he first authoritatively proposed and developed the Missouri Compromise. His masterly effort was mainly directed against the restriction upon Missouri, but it began and ended with the idea of compromise. "Notwithstanding," he says, "occasional appearances of rather an unfavorable description, I have long since persuaded myself that the Missouri Question, as it is called, might be laid to rest, with innocence and safety, by some conciliatory compromise at least, by which, as is our duty, we might reconcile the extremes of conflicting views and feelings, without any sacrifice of constitutional principles." And he closed with the hope that the restriction on Missouri would not be pressed, but
