Monroe vetoes the Missouri Compromise

"To President Monroe, native of a slave state, avowed friend of the West, but anxious that nothing ruin his prospects for a second term, the clause in the Missouri Bill prohibiting slavery in the northern Louisiana Territory presented serious problems. 'Should the bill pass, it will place the President in a sad dilemma,' wrote a young congressman from New Hampshire. 'If he rejects it...he loses all the North, where his best friends now are--if he approves it, he is at open war with Virginia and the South.' Since his first instinct was certainly to avoid open war, Monroe originally drafted a veto message, stating that 'the proposed restriction to territories which are to be admitted into the Union, if not in direct violation of the Constitution, is repugnant to its principles.' A better idea occurred to him, however--he would seek the advice of his Cabinet. He found these able men as sharply divided on the issue as the Congress, but a little judicious modification of the President's questions finally enabled them to arrive at their own compromise and provide him with the opinion that the Enabling Act, even with the Thomas Amendment, was not inconsistent with the Constitution. With this support, Monroe signed the Missouri Bill on March 2, 1820.

"While the question was still pending in February, there were rumors in Washington that a caucus of congressmen from the non-slaveholding states would nominate 'some person in opposition to Mr. Monroe,' but no such opposition materialized. The leader for whom Calhoun thought the 'general mass of disaffection' was searching failed to appear within the ranks of the Republicans, nor did Rufus King, the only Federalist with any stature, have the political ambitions which the South ascribed to him. So James Monroe won a second term by default, in a general atmosphere of indifference...

"Only in Pennsylvania did opposition to Monroe express itself in the popular vote, and this was due exclusively to William Duane, the caustic Philadelphia publisher. Denouncing the President, not only for being a Virginian but for having accepted the Missouri Compromise, Duane offered his own electoral ticket, pledged to vote for De Witt Clinton and to throw off the shackles of the slave-holding South. This act of defiance enabled a third of the citizens who came to the polls in Philadelphia to vote against Monroe, but it had negligible effects elsewhere..."

Lynn W. Turner, "Elections of 1816 and 1820," in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Fred L. Israel, and William P. Hansen (eds.), History of American Presiddential Elections, 1789-1968, Vol. I, pp. 314, 316.

So suppose Monroe had gone with his first instinct, and vetoed the Compromise? I have reproduced his draft veto message in its entirety as an appendix to this post. His constitutional argument seems strained, and it is not surprising that he later abandoned it and signed the Compromise. Unlike several of the justices of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, he does not rely on the Due Process Clause as giving southerners the right to take slaves into the territories, nor indeed does he declare flatly that federal prohibition of slavery in the territories is unconstitutional; rather he argues that it is repugnant to the "spirit" of the Consitution in that it is intended to settle the policy of the new states in advance. This is true in the sense that while the Compromise did not theoretically prevent new states from establishing slavery once they were admitted, they would be most unlikely to do so if slavery were forbidden while they were territories. But of course in that sense, any federal legislation on anything in the territories could be thought a violation of states' rights, because any such legislation has a practical effect on the policies the territories are likely to adopt when they become states. I think the real heart of Monroe's objections to the Compromise can be summed up not in the legal arguments but in the extremely blunt statement of southern racial fears: "That should the slaves be confined to the States in which slavery exists, as the free people will continue to emigrate, the disproportion between them will in a few years be very great, and at no distant period the whole [southern] country will fall into the hands of the blacks."

Monroe of course does not refer to slavery as a "positive good" as Calhoun was later to do. Indeed, in the message he calls it a "national evil." Like Madison and Jefferson (and some younger Virginians like John Tyler), however, he was at the time a "diffusionist." The argument of the diffusionists was that diffusing slavery to the West would, by reducing the ratio of slaves to whites in the older South, make eventual emancipation in those older states (presumably accompanied by colonization) more likely. (Moroever, even if it didn't lead to immediate emancipation, dispersion would make the slaves better off because "diminishing the density of the slave population lessened fears of insurrection and encouraged slaveholders to adopt less draconian regimens of slave control." http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/teaching/2008_06/article.pdf ) Today the diffusionist argument--weaken slavery by expanding it!--looks like a hopeless sophistry. Yet the diffusionist arguments did have a certain plausibility to moderate Southerners in 1820. Slavery, after all, had been pretty much abolished in the North (including some Middle Alantic states like New York which had once had a considerable amount of slavery) largely because the ratio of slaves to whites in the North had diminished so much--and one reason it had diminished was that northern slaveholders could sell their slaves to the South and Southwest. That this process might continue and lead to emancipation in Delaware (which indeed always seemed on the verge of emancipating its slaves but never quite did so), Maryland, and eventually even Virginia did not seem impossible. Of course the diffusionists had to answer the question of why they had favored the Northwest Ordinance in the 1780's--or in Jefferson's case had actually favored banning slavery in all federal territories. Madison tried rather lamely to explain the inconsistency by saying that under the Articles of Confederation the federal government had no power to prohibit the African slave trade and that therefore it could only move against that trade indirectly, by restricting the area to which slavery could spread. [1]

Not of course that the diffusionists' professed concern for the slaves should be taken at face value: "While public arguments for diffusion focused on how expansion would benefit slaves by improving their treatment, living conditions, and prospects for future emancipation, the policy of diffusion also served the financial interests of the upper South's slaveholders. By encouraging the westward expansion of slavery, diffusion ensured a market for the 'surplus' slaves from old tobacco states. It offered upper South slave owners a means of both divesting themselves of expensive and redundant labor and recouping the capital they had invested in slaves. Moreover, by creating additional slaveholding states, the expansion of slavery helped protect, at least for a time, the political clout of slaveholding states in Congress." http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/teaching/2008_06/article.pdf

But even though they were diffusionists, most moderate southern Republicans accepted the Compromise. (The only complainers were the extreme states'-rights Old Republicans, and they were in no position to put up a serious opposition to Monroe.) So Monroe hardly had to face the "open war" with the South that some had feared. And in the North, as noted, the only serious opposition to Monroe on anti-Compromise and anti-"Virginia Dynasty" grounds came in Philadelphia. If Monroe had vetoed the Compromise, though, a northern Republican opposition candidate (with Federalist support) would have been sure to have arisen--maybe De Witt Clinton? If so, who would have won the 1820 presidential election? If the northern candidate won, could we see secession and perhaps civil war in 1821 instead of 1861? Presumably not, so long as the northern candidate was willing to sign the Compromise--but Monroe's veto might enrage many northenerners into taking a "no compromise" position. Conversely, suppose Monroe is re-elected but Congress insists on denying admission to Missouri as long as Monroe refuses to yield on slavery in the territories. How long can the deadlock go on before serious secessionist sentiment develops--perhaps in both North and South?


***

APPENDIX
Monroe's draft veto message

Rough draught, or notes, of President Monroe's intended Veto Message, rejecting the Missouri Bill, if it had passed Congress with certain
restrictions, found in his handwriting, among his papers in possession of S. L. Gouverneur, Esq.

Having fully considered the bill entitled, &c., and disapproved of it, I now return it to the _____ in which it originated, with my objections to the same.

That the Constitution, in providing that new States may be admitted into the Union, as is done by the third section of the fourth article, intended that they should be admitted with all the rights and immunities of the original States, retaining, like them, all the powers as to their local governments, all the powers ceded to it by the Constitution.

That if conditions of a character not applicable to the original States should be imposed on a new State, an inequality would be imposed or created, lessening in degree the right of State sovereignty, which would always be degrading to such new State, and which, operating as a condition of its admission, its incorporation would be incomplete, and would also be annulled, and such new State be severed from the Union, should afterwards assume equality, and exercise a power acknowledged to belong to all the original States.

That the proposed restriction to territories which are to be admitted into the Union, if not in direct violation of the Constitution, is repugnant to its principles, since it is intended to produce an effect on the future policy of the new States, operating unequally in regard to the original States, injuring those affected by it, in an interest protected from such injury by the Constitution, without benefiting any State in the Union; and that, in this sense, it is repugnant to the generous spirit which has ["so long" erased] always existed and been cherished by the several States toward each other.

That the first clause of the ninth section of the first article, which provides that "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior," &c., in whatever sense the term migration or importation may be understood, whether as applicable to the same description of persons or otherwise, confines the power of Congress exclusively to persons entering the United States, or who might be disposed to enter, from abroad, and precludes all interference with such persons, or any other persons, who had previously entered according to the laws of any of the States.

That by the third section of the first article, whereby it is provided that representation and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a number of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons--[the words "the persons held in bondage" erased,] slavery, as existing under the laws of the several States, [the word "were" erased] was not only recognized, but [the word "secured" erased] its political existence was secured to the States, which it would be unjust to the States within which such persons are to deprive them of, as it would be inhuman to the persons themselves.

That should the slaves be confined to the States in which slavery exists, as the free people will continue to emigrate, the disproportion between them will in a few years be very great, and at no distant period the whole country will fall into the hands of the blacks. As soon as this disproportion reaches a certain State, the white population would probably abandon those States to avoid insurrection and massacre. What would become of the country without States? Would the general government ["protect" erased] support the owners of slaves in their authority over them, after the States individually had lost the power?--or the slaves being in possession of those States, and independent of their owners, would the States be recognized as belonging to them, and their representatives be received in Congress.

That it would be better to compel the whites to remain, and the blacks to move, &c.

That slavery is not the offspring of this Revolution; that it took place in our colonial state; that all further importations have been prohibited since the Revolution, under laws which are vigorously enforced; that in our revolutionary struggle, the States in which slavery existed sustained their share in the common burdens, furnished their equal quotas of troops, and paid their equal share of taxes; that slavery, though a national evil, is felt most sensibly by the States in which it exists; that it would be destructive to the whites to confine it there, and to the blacks, as the distribution of them over an extensive territory, and among many owners, will secure them a better treatment; that the extension of it to new States cannot possibly injure the old, as they will claim all their rights, since no attempt can ever be made, or idea entertained, of requiring them to admit slavery; that an attempt to fix on the States having slavery any odium is unmerited, and would be ungenerous.

http://books.google.com/books?id=B7kWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA285

[1] Madison acknowledged his conviction "that an uncontrolled dispersion of the slaves now within the United States, was not only best for the nation, but most favorable for the slaves also, both as to their prospects of emancipation, and as to their condition in the mean time." As to the Northwest Ordinace, he argued that

"I have observed, as yet, in none of the views taken of the Ordinance of 1787, interdicting slavery northwest of the river Ohio, an allusion to the circumstance that when it passed, Congress had no authority to prohibit the importation of slaves from abroad; that all the States had, and some were in the full exercise of, the right to import them; and, consequently, that there was no mode in which Congress could check the evil, but the indirect one of narrowing the space open for the reception of slaves.

"Had a federal authority then existed to prohibit, directly and totally, the importation from abroad, can it be doubted that it would have been exerted, and that a regulation having merely the effect of preventing the interior disposition of slaves actually in the United States, and creating a distinction among the States in the degree of their sovereignty, would not have been adopted, or perhaps thought of?"

http://books.google.com/books?id=B7kWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA285
 
If Monroe thought that signing the Compromise might hurt him in the South, he would soon find out otherwise. As William W. Freehling notes in Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, even South Carolina (then still in a nationalist mood) generally favored the Compromise--with one important exception:

"In 1820 tidewater gentlemen had been nervous but not acutely distressed when Congress discussed slavery during the Missouri Controversy. Lowndes, the lowcountry's revered political leader, worked hard for a moderate compromise, and a majority of his Carolina colleagues favored the final settlement. Charleston newspapers did their best to keep the issue out of the public eye. When the Compromise was at last enacted, Calhoun professed to 'sincerely believe' that the issue had been settled 'forever'—the view of many nationalists.

"One lowcountry leader, however, shunned moderation during the first national crisis over the slavery issue. In the national House of Representatives, Charles Pinckney of Charleston gave a major oration against the Missouri Compromise. Pinckney, a leading figure in lowcountry politics for over a generation, had been a prominent member of the Constitutional Convention in 787. Drawing on his memories of the proceedings, the Charleston congressman maintained that the Founding Fathers had given Congress no authority over the Negro issue. Settling the Missouri dispute, he argued, was 'very unimportant' compared with 'keeping the hands of Congress from touching the question of slavery.' If Congress established its right to consider the subject, he warned, 'there is no knowing to what length it may be carried.'

"In 1820 most South Carolina planters were inclined toward the optimism of Calhoun rather than the forebodings of Pinckney. The outburst of antislavery 'fanaticism,' however alarming in itself, seemed an aberrant storm which would soon blow over. But after the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy in 1822, the tidewater gentry had grim second thoughts about congressional slavery debates. It seemed clear that 'the unreflecting zeal of the North and East' had directly animated 'Vesey in his hellish efforts'; and in retrospect the Missouri Controversy appeared to be a harrowing event. Charles Pinckney's doctrines, although rejected in 1820, had become lowcountry dogma by 1823. As Whitemarsh Seabrook summed up the mood at tidewater in the mid-1820's, 'whoever remembers the inflammatory speeches on the Missouri bill, must be aware, that no subject, in which the question of slavery may be directly or incidentally introduced, can be canvassed, without the most malevolent and serious excitement.'..." https://books.google.com/books?id=FPZOEitjDFwC&pg=PA108
https://books.google.com/books?id=FPZOEitjDFwC&pg=PA109
 
It's certainly an interesting POD. To declare an interest (and put down a marker!), I've been working on using the Missouri Crisis as a way of bringing De Witt Clinton to power in 1820, though with a different POD.

You mentioned Monroe's fear of 'open war' with Virginia and the South. As you say, historically, signing the compromise seemed to defuse the issue and avoided any break with the South, but there were certainly a real fear that even the Thomas Amendment, which was hardly beloved in the north, would be too far for Virginia:

"On the 9th of February, 1820, a caucus of the members of the General Assembly convened to nominate presidential electors. Mr Yancey, a leading member, who had received a letter from Mr Barbour, broke the news of the President's position to the caucus. Immediately an intense excitement prevailed; the proposed compromise was bitterly denounced, and so indignant were all with Mr Monroe that no electors were at this time nominated, and an adjournment took place."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1919798

I think that in your scenario where Monroe actually vetoes the compromise, a northern challenger to Monroe is likely. Regardless of who wins however, I think it would be very difficult to resurrect the compromise; in OTL, it passed the House of Representatives with the votes of fourteen northern representatives, many of whom subsequently went down to defeat because of it. Can enough northern doughfaces be found to replace them in the 17th Congress, given that it's just been demonstrated that voting for compromise is likely to be an electoral liability? In any case, I don't think a northern president just elected on anti-Missouri sentiment could ever sign even OTL's Missouri Compromise. Can a re-elected Monroe meanwhile really hope for a better deal than OTL's Compromise? The numbers in the House suggest not. Altogether, some kind of sectional crisis seems inevitable, although I think it will take a very different shape to OTL's secession winter of 1860/1861.

John R. Van Atta, author of Wolf by the Ears: The Missouri Crisis, 1819-1821, has some counterfactual thoughts here:

"It must have been tempting in 1860-1861, as it is today, to blame earlier politicians for their failure to prohibit slavery expansion altogether. But for them to do that would have required a powerful nation-state capable of compelling the obedience of anti-federal southerners and, later, anti-national westerners. Barring all other contingencies, that kind of modern state might have emerged in America within two decades after 1820, had antislavery restrictionists been able to hold their ground in the Missouri fight and a dominant northern free-soil party developed as a result. In that event, some of the slave states might have seceded then, giving up their share of the trans-Mississippi West, instead of waiting until 1860-1861. Some northerners would have welcomed that departure instead of fighting to save a dysfunctional union. Afterwards, under intensifying demographic and foreign pressure to end slavery, those states might finally have done so and, perhaps in time, have rejoined the United States. But devotion to that old, internally flawed union proved strong in 1820, as it would in years to come, hence the pro-southern compromise of that year and others to follow until the coping mechanisms that held rival sections, North and South, together for so long had finally worn away."
 
Last edited:
@David T
brother, I'm going to read everything you typed...

on your word processor (while you kept a rolodex of index cards on which you wrote down all your citations), then mimeographed your typed up missive, let it dry, scanned it, converted it back to text, and then copy and pasted it into the forum...

but if you could post an abstract, that would be rather helpful
 
Top