THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 323 been philanthropy. In any case, he was responsible for starting a lively discussion which revealed how close to disunion the country always was. Moreover he was the aggressor in an attack upon the established order. Slavery had existed in Missouri ever since it had been a French colony, and up to the introduction of these amendments no serious attempt had been made by legislative enactment to abolish slavery where it already existed. The Congressional debate upon the amendments, and upon the whole question of slavery, was notoriously lively. For the antislavery side Senator Rufus King of New York argued that, under the Constitutional provision granting power to make all needful rules and regulations for the territories, Congress could exclude slavery. For precedent, he cited Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, all admitted under restrictions imposed by the Ordinance of 1787. Because King chose to base his argument upon Constitutional grounds, he could hardly complain when the patent fallacy in his reasoning was pointed out. Whatever power Congress may have had over the territories, over the states it had only those named in the Constitution. In the Constitution as it was before the Thirteenth Amendment there was nothing to prevent a state from legislating as it pleased about slavery. Consequently Congressional prohibition of slavery could be binding only during the territorial period, because the state could repudiate it. To be sure no state tried the experiment with slavery, but in later years, Arizona successfully repudiated a restriction on its scheme for the recall of judicial decisions. William Pinkney of Maryland pointed out the flaw. He said that when a state entered the union, it came in on terms of equality with the older states, consequently, Congress should not try to restrict their freedom of action. The Tallmadge amendment passed the House, but met defeat in the Senate. The debate, however, convinced the South that there was a determined antislavery minority in the North, and that the weaker section must be on its guard against aggression. For a defense against possible hostile action on the part of the federal government, the South turned to the Senate, where it was still on even terms with the North. In 1819 there were still eleven slave and eleven nonslave states, while in the House, the nonslave state representation was one hundred and five, against eighty-one for the slave states. Just how the question would have been settled on the merits of the case no one knows. Fortunately the eastern counties of Massachusetts, now in the state of Maine, were applying for statehood. This furnished an opportunity to preserve the balance in the Senate, and to compromise the dispute. According to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Maine and Missouri were both admitted, one free, the other slave. For the remaining part of the Louisiana Purchase, slavery was forbidden in that part outside of Missouri, north of her southern boundary, the line 36° 30'. The Southern leaders voted for the Compromise, to save the union, not because they approved of the principle. And in voting for it, many of them were left with a feeling of resentment that pointed toward future trouble. The justification of the Compromise is to be found in the fact that it did bring about a settlement of a troublesome question, for the time being, and not infrequently a settlement planned as temporary proves to be permanent. That such was not the case here was due to the introduction, later on, of new factors. From the speeches of prominent leaders on both sides in Congress, THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 325 and from remarks made elsewhere, it is easy to see how deeply the country was stirred. The slavery interests felt that an unwarranted attack had been made upon a necessary institution. The opponents of slavery resented the suggestions of disunion. While the Compromise settled the immediate problem of slavery in the Louisiana Purchase, it also marked the beginning of the sectional conflict over slavery. CHAPTER XXX THE MONROE DOCTRINE The first set of foreign problems with which the United States had to deal were concerned partly with boundary and frontier matters, and partly, perhaps largely, with commerce. By 1815 these had been pretty well settled. But once they were out of the way, the revolutionary situation in Latin America gave rise to a whole list of new difficulties, important enough to demand the definite formulation of a policy concerning them. For three hundred years the Spanish empire had gone on, without a single serious threat in the shape of revolution. During that time, both the government and the trade of the colonies had been controlled and regulated in most minute fashion by the Spanish authorities at home. No provision for selfgovernment had ever been made; in fact, there had been surprisingly little demand for anything of the sort. This indifference was probably due to the character of the population. In all the Spanish colonies there was a large Indian element, as well as an interesting collection of various types of half-breeds. Although they had been converted to the Catholic faith, they had never become civilized in the European sense of the word. Ignorant of public affairs, they thought little and cared less about matters of government. As for the whites, of Spanish extraction, they had never known any form of government except the absolute system in Spain, and they could think of more reasons for continuing the old forms than for attempting to organize new ones. As for commercial regulations, the Spanish arrangements for monopoly made the English navigation acts look like the freest of free trade. The central figure of the commercial system was the House of Trade, in Spain, and this body had absolute control over all of the Spanish colonial commerce. Not only were all foreigners barred out of the trade, but even all Latin Americans, and all Spaniards, except a favored few. No inhabitant of Spanish America was permitted even to own a ship. LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 327 LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE Unbearable as the whole policy seems to Anglo-Saxons, it had worked, perhaps more smoothly than the far more liberal English system. Once the Indians had been thoroughly conquered, a process virtually completed in the sixteenth century, Spain had little trouble. Perhaps the most active efforts to foment revolution were those carried on after 1783 by Miranda, a Latin American agitator, adventurer, or patriot, depending on the point of view. After serving under Washington in the American Revolution, he consecrated his life to the liberation of Latin America. His schemes carried him from the United States to England, France, and back to America again. But all of his work before 1818 resulted in nothing at all. The real beginning of Latin American independence dates from 1807, when Napoleon took possession of the Spanish government. In order to force recalcitrant Portugal into his continental system, Napoleon planned to control Spain, and then extend his power over Portugal. To this end he deposed the Spanish king Charles IV, and his son Ferdinand, and then gave the kingdom to Joseph Bonaparte, his own brother. But the Spanish people refused to consent to this high-handed proceeding. The rule of the Bonapartes was repudiated everywhere outside the immediate range of the French troops, and the Spanish rebellion, starting in 1808, proved to be one of the important factors in the ultimate downfall of Napoleon. In Latin America the various provinces first refused to recognize Napoleon's authority, and then set up governments of their own, professing allegiance to Ferdinand VII, the deposed prince. By 1810 all of Spanish America except a part of Peru was in open rebellion. In 1811 Venezuela declared herself independent of both Napoleon and Ferdinand VII, and set up a republican form of government. Miranda, the patron saint of Latin American freedom, became the first president. But by 1812 Miranda was overthrown, given up to the Spaniards, and shipped to Spain, to spend the last three years of his life in a prison in Cadiz. In its pursuit of "legitimacy" the Congress of Vienna, in 1814, restored Spain to its Bourbon rulers, and Ferdinand VII became king. Temperamentally conservative and constitutionally stupid, the new king proceeded to reestablish the former system of colonial |