Spanish treaty.

isiana, but as a detached peninsula it was of little value to Spain. John Quincy Adams now undertook a negotiation for the settlement of all outstanding difficulties with Spain, and on Feb. 22, 1819, a treaty was signed: East Florida was ceded for a payment of about $6,500,000, and at the same time the western boundary of Louisiana was settled. An irregular line was described from the Gulf to the forty-second parallel; it was not far distant from the watershed south and west of the tributaries of the Mississippi. Then came the triumph of the whole negotiation: Adams obtained from Spain a renunciation of all claims south of the fortysecond parallel, as far west as the Pacific. Our hold upon Oregon was thus much strengthened.

125. Judicial Decisions (1812-1824).

Two departments of the federal government had now shown their belief that the United States was a nation which ought to exercise national powers. New judges. How did it stand with the judiciary department? Of the judges of the Supreme Court appointed by Washington and Adams but two remained in office in 1817; but the new justices, as they were appointed, quietly accepted the constitutional principles laid down by Marshall, their Chief Justice and leader. Among them was Joseph Story of Massachusetts, whose mastery of legal reasoning and power of statement gave him unusual influence. After the Marbury case in 1803 (§ 96) the Court refrained for some years from delivering decisions Authority which involved important political questions. asserted. In 1809, however, it sustained Judge Peters of the Pennsylvania District Court in a struggle for authority against the governor and legislature of that State (§ 110). The courts were victorious, and the commander

1812-1824.]

Judicial Decisions.

235

of the militia, who had opposed them with armed force, was punished.

Appeals taken.

The legislation of 1815 and 1816 showed to the Court that its view of the Constitution was accepted by the people; and it now began a series of great constitutional decisions, which put on record as legal precedents the doctrines of implied powers and of national sovereignty. In the great cases of Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee, and Cohens vs. Virginia, in 1816 and 1821, it asserted the right of the Supreme Court to take cases on appeal from the State courts, and thus to make itself the final tribunal in constitutional questions. At about the same time, in two famous cases, McCullough vs. Maryland in 1819, and Osborn et al. vs. Bank of the United States in 1824, the doctrine of im

Implied powers affirmed.

plied powers was stated in the most definite manner. Both cases arose out of the attempt of States to tax the United States Bank, and the final issue was the power of Congress to charter such a bank. The doctrine laid down by Hamilton in 1791 (§ 78) was reaffirmed in most positive terms. "A national bank," said Marshall, " is an appropriate means to carry out some of the implied powers, a usual and convenient agent. . . . Let the end be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional." Although the tariff act was not tested by a specific case, the spirit of the decision reached it also.

State powers limited.

but consistent with the

Having thus asserted the authority of the nation on one side, the Court proceeded to draw the boundary of the powers of the States on the other side. In a question arising out of grants of land by the Georgia legislature in the Yazoo district, it had been claimed that any such grant could be withdrawn by a

subsequent legislature. Peck, in 1810, that such a withdrawal was in contravention of the constitutional clause which forbade the States to impair the obligation of contracts. In 1819, in the celebrated case of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward, this principle was pushed to an unexpected conclusion. The legislature of New Hampshire had passed an act modifying a charter granted in colonial times to DartImpairment mouth College. Webster, as counsel for the of contracts. Board of Trustees which had thus been dispossessed, pleaded that a charter granted to a corporation was a contract which could not be altered without its consent. Much indirect argument was brought to bear upon Marshall, and eventually the Court held that private charters were contracts. The effect of this decision was to diminish the power and prestige of the State governments; but the general sentiment of the country sustained it. So united did all factions now seem in one theory of national existence that in the election of 1820 Monroe received every vote but one.

The Court held in Fletcher vs.

126. The Slavery Question revived (1815-1820).

of slavery.

Out of this peace and concord suddenly sprang up, as Jefferson said, "like a fire-bell in the night," a question Silent growth which had silently divided the Union, and threatened to dissolve it. It was the question of slavery. During the whole course of the Napoleonic wars the country had been occupied in the defence of its neutral trade; since 1815 it had been busy in reorganizing its commercial and political system. During this time, however, four new States had been admitted into the Union of these, two- Ohio and Indiana - came in with constitutions prohibiting slavery; two - Louisiana and Mississippi - had slaves. This balance was not

1815-1820.]

Slavery Question revived.

237

accidental; it was arranged so as to preserve a like balance in the Senate.

The movement against slavery had by no means spent itself: there were still emancipation societies both Slavery North and South. In 1794 Jay appeared to profitable. suppose that cotton was not an American export (§ 85); but since the invention of the cotton-gin in 1793 the cultivation of cotton by slave labor had grown more and more profitable, and in 1820 that export was valued at nearly twenty millions. The planters of the northern belt of slaveholding States did not share in this culture, but they found an increasing sale for their surplus blacks to their Southern neighbors; they had, therefore, joined with members from the Northern States in the act of March 2, 1807, to prohibit the importation of slaves. The act was insufficient, inasmuch as the punishment provided was slight, and slaves captured while in course of illegal importation were sold for the benefit of the States into which they were brought. In 1820 the slave-trade was made piracy, so that the nominal penalty was death.

Slave-trade forbidden.

One evidence of the uneasiness of the country on the slavery question was the formation of the American ColoSchemes of nization Society in 1816. Its purpose was to colonization. encourage emancipation, and thus to reduce the evils of slavery, by drawing off the free blacks and colonizing them in Africa. It had a large membership throughout the country; James Madison and Henry Clay were among its presidents. Some States made grants of money in its aid, and after 1819 the United States assisted it by sending to the African colony slaves captured while in course of illegal importation. The whole scheme was but a palliative, and in fact rather tended to strengthen slavery, by taking away the disquieting presence of free blacks among the slaves. The So

ciety, however, never had the means to draw away enough negroes sensibly to affect the problem; the number which they exported was replaced many times over by illegal importations from Africa.

Fugitive slaves.

In two other directions the nation had power over slavery, but declined to exercise it. The Fugitive Slave Act (§ 79) was found to be ineffective. From 1818 to 1822 three bills to strengthen it were introduced and strongly pressed, but nothing could be accomplished. In the District of Columbia, where the United States had complete legislative power, Columbia. slavery existed under a very harsh code. Washington was a centre for the interstate slave-trade, and John Randolph, himself a slaveholder, could not restrain his indignation that "we should have here in the very streets of our metropolis a depot for this nefarious traffic;" but Congress took no action.

District of

Status of

A question had now arisen which must be decided. The whole of the Louisiana cession was slaveholding territory, and settlers had gone up the Mississippi Louisiana. River and its western tributaries with their slaves. In 1819 it was found necessary to provide a territorial government for Arkansas; and the people living about the Missouri River applied to be admitted as a State with a slaveholding constitution.

Arkansas debate.

127. The Missouri Compromises (1818-1821).

The first step in the great slavery contest was a bill Introduced into the House in December, 1818, providing a territorial government for Arkansas. Taylor of New York proposed that slavery be prohibited in the Territory; McLane of Delaware suggested the “fixing of a line on the west of the Mississippi, north of which slavery should not be tolerated." The test vote