Jefferson On The Missouri Compromise
Two centuries agone, on February 13, 1819, James Tallmadge, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party formed by Thomas Jefferson, offered an amendment to a bill regarding the access of the Territory of Missouri into the U.s.. The and so-chosen Tallmadge Amendment proposed banning further imports of slaves into the future land, besides equally the gradual emancipation of those already in the territory. What should have been a unproblematic decision on the future of Missouri, however, presently became a fence on the future of slavery in all of the territories west of the Mississippi River. The lands in question had been purchased by Thomas Jefferson in 1803, and the Sage of Monticello soon found himself in the thick of the activity as the discussions over the so-chosen Missouri Question heated upwardly.
On the face of it, Jefferson appeared to be a person who would support the Tallmadge Amendment. As Jefferson historian John Chester Miller writes: "In 1784 he had tried to exclude slavery from all the territories of the Usa and he had unqualifiedly endorsed the antislavery provision of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787."[1] Jefferson had been expressionless-set against the westward expansion of slavery in his early career, believing that such exclusions would kill off American slavery once and for all. However, thirty-odd years and a presidential term had changed his views. By 1819, Jefferson, still claiming the goal of abolitionism, now favored a concept called diffusion that involved spreading slaves "over a greater surface" ensuring their "emancipation; by dividing the burthen" between white communities.[2] As a result, by the time of the Missouri Crisis, Jefferson argued loudly for the expansion of slavery into the Louisiana Purchase lands. With his prominent position and political connections, the ex-president became a vocal advocate confronting the Tallmadge Amendment by late 1819.
Aside from his views on slavery, in that location were other reasons why Jefferson chose to briefly leave retirement and engage publicly in the Missouri debate. One reason was to try and reunite the Democratic-Republican Party, which found itself dangerously divided by the crisis. Jefferson was also concerned about how exclusive the argue over slavery had become. Before the schism opened by Tallmadge at that place was no clear north-south divide over the peculiar institution, but the Missouri Crisis began to bear witness articulate cracks betwixt northerners and southerners, fifty-fifty though virtually all of the politicians involved belonged to the same political party. Specially apropos to Jefferson and his fellow southerners was the possibility that stopping slavery spreading west would create more costless states, giving these regions the same political majority in the senate that they already enjoyed in the Firm of Representatives.
In guild to bring the divided Democratic-Republicans back together over again, Jefferson needed to create a national enemy that his whole political party could unite against. For this office, he chose his old foe: the Federalist Party. Although the party of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton had nearly ceased to exist (and although Tallmadge and others in his army camp were Democratic-Republicans themselves), Jefferson began complaining of a Federalist conspiracy in his many writings during the Missouri Crisis. "the Missouri question is a meer party fob. the leaders of federalism defeated in their schemes of obtaining ability…have changed their tack, and thrown out another barrel," Jefferson ranted to Charles Pinckney, the South Carolina Republican.[3] In a alphabetic character to Albert Gallatin, Jefferson insisted that the antislavery rhetoric of those that argued against the institution's expansion into Missouri, "served to throw grit into the eyes of the people and to fanaticise them."[4] Jefferson thus argued that this group were simply using moral arguments well-nigh slavery to hide their true intentions: to destroy his Party, and the south in general, politically.
While Jefferson was arguing virtually larger national ideas, however, it was problems at home at Monticello that helped cement his concerns about Missouri and slavery'due south expansion. In a famous letter of the alphabet to Maine politician John Holmes, Jefferson described how "nosotros take the wolf past the ear, and we can neither concur him, nor safely allow him get."[5] As the Missouri Crisis connected into 1820, Jefferson struggled both with this concept and a compromise that he considered to band a "firebell in the dark." A firebell, he feared, that warned of his nation's impending collapse.
To be continued…
[1] John Chester Miller, The wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (New York: Macmillan Books, 1977), 232.
[two] Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 22 Apr 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, University of Virginia.
[3] Thomas Jefferson to Charles Pinckney, 30 September 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress
[4] Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 26 December 1820, Albert Gallatin Papers, New York Historical Society
[5] Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, 22 April 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Academy of Virginia
Jefferson On The Missouri Compromise,
Source: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/blog/the-wolf-by-the-ear-thomas-jefferson-and-the-missouri-crisis-1819-21/
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