Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/522

 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."

Mr. Trimble, of Ohio, moved a substitute for this, somewhat altering the boundaries of the region shielded from slavery, which was rejected. Yeas, 20, (northern;) nays, 24, (southern, with Noble, Edwards, and Taylor.)

The question then recurred on Mr. Thomas's amendment, which was adopted as follows: Yeas, for excluding slavery from all the territory north and west of Missouri, 34 — 20 from free states, 14 from slave states. Nays, against such restriction, 10 — 2 from Indiana.

The bill, thus amended, was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, by a vote of 24 to 20.

The bill was thus passed, (Feb. 18th) without further division, and sent to the house for concurrence. In the house, Mr. Thomas's amendment (as above) was at first rejected by both parties, and defeated by the strong vote of 159 to 18. Prior to this vote, the house disagreed to the log-rolling of Maine and Missouri, into one bill, by the strong vote of 93 to 72.

The house also disagreed to the remaining amendments of the senate (striking out the restriction on slavery in Missouri) by the strong vote of 102 yeas to 68 nays. Nearly or quite every representative of a free state voted in the majority of this division, with four from slave states.

So the house rejected all the senate's amendments, and returned the bill with a corresponding message.

The senate took up the bill on the 24th, and debated it till the 28th, when, on a direct vote, it was decided not to recede from the attachment of Missouri to the Maine bill: yeas 21 (19 from free states and 2 from Delaware); nays 23, (20 from slave states, with Messrs. Taylor, of Indiana, Edwards and Thomas, of Illinois.)

The senate also voted not to recede from its amendment prohibiting slavery west of Missouri, and north of 36° 30' north latitude. (For receding, 9 from slave states, with Messrs. Noble and Taylor, of Indiana;) against it 33; (22 from slave states, 11 from free states.) The remaining amendments of the senate were then insisted on without division, and the house notified accordingly.

The bill was now returned to the house, which, on motion of Mr. John W. Taylor, of New York, voted to insist on its disagreement to all but section 9 of the senate's amendments, by yeas 97 to nays 76; all but a purely sectional vote; Hugh Nelson, of Virginia, voting with the north; Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, Bloomfield, of New Jersey, and Shaw, of Massachusetts, voting with the south.

Section 9, (the senate's exclusion of slavery from the territory north and west of Missouri,) was also rejected — yeas 160, nays 14, (much as before.) The senate thereupon (March 2nd) passed the house Missouri bill, striking out the restriction of slavery by yeas 27 to nays 15, and adding without a division the exclusion of slavery from the territory west and north of said state. Mr.