* * * * * A simple statement of facts, derived from the Journals of Congress and contemporary records,[42] will show the origin and nature of this compact, the influence by which it was established, and the obligations it imposed. [42] As the volumes of the Annals of Congress covering the proceedings on the Missouri Compromise were not published when this speech was made, Mr. Sumner was obliged to rely upon the National Intelligencer and Niles's Register. In the present edition references are made to the Annals of Congress. As early as 1818, at the first session of the Fifteenth Congress, a bill was reported to the House of Representatives, authorizing the people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitution and State Government, for the admission of such State into the Union; but at that session no final action was had. At the next session, in February, 1819, the bill was again brought forward, when an eminent Representative of New York, whose life was spared till this last autumn, Mr. James Tallmadge, moved a clause prohibiting any further introduction of slaves into the proposed State, and securing Freedom to the children born within the State, after admission into the Union, on attaining the age of twenty-five years. This important proposition, which assumed a power not only to prohibit the ingress of Slavery into the State, _but also to abolish it there_, was passed in the affirmative, after a vehement debate of three days. On a division of the question, the first part, prohibiting the further introduction of slaves, was adopted by eighty-seven yeas to seventy-six nays; the second part, providing for the emancipation of children, was adopted by eighty-two yeas to seventy-eight nays. Other propositions to thwart the operation of these amendments were voted down, and on the 17th of February the bill was read a third time, and passed with these important restrictions. In the Senate, after debate, the provision for the emancipation of children was struck out by thirty-one yeas to seven nays; the other provision, against the further introduction of Slavery, was struck out by twenty-two yeas to sixteen nays. Thus emasculated, the bill was returned to the House, which, on the 2d of March, by a vote of seventy-eight nays to seventy-six yeas, refused its concurrence. The Senate adhered to their amendments, and the House, by seventy-eight yeas to sixty-six nays, adhered to their disagreement; and so at this session the Missouri Bill was lost: and here was a temporary triumph for Freedom.