MISSOURI COMPROMISE OF 1820.

When Missouri applied for admission into the Union, a proposition was started in Congress to prohibit the introduction of slavery into the new State. This had the effect of arraying the South against the North—the slaveholding against the non-slaveholding States—and the whole subject of slavery became the exciting topic of debate throughout the country. The question was finally settled by a Compromise, which tolerated slavery in Missouri, but otherwise prohibited it in all the territory of the United States north and west of the northern limits of Arkansas.

As the principle then settled has often since been the prolific source of much sectional controversy and angry debate, and as it is desirable that every one should be familiar with the real provisions of the act by which Missouri was admitted, we have concluded to insert here so much of the law as is necessary to a full understanding of the subject. All the sections, except the following, relate entirely to the formation of the Missouri territory, in the usual form of territorial bills:

“Sec. 8. That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby, forever prohibited. Provided always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed, in any State or Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”