Such efforts, pressed with Southern ardor, were not unavailing. In conformity with the report of the Committee, the whole question was forthwith put at rest. Maine and Missouri were admitted into the Union as independent States. The restriction of Slavery in Missouri was abandoned by a vote in the House of ninety yeas to eighty-seven nays; and the prohibition of Slavery in territories north of 36° 30´, exclusive of Missouri, was substituted by a vote of one hundred and thirty-four yeas to forty-two nays. Among the distinguished Southern names in the affirmative are Louis McLane, of Delaware, Samuel Smith, of Maryland, William Lowndes, of South Carolina, and Charles Fenton Mercer, of Virginia. The title of the Missouri Bill was amended in conformity with this prohibition, by adding the words, "and to prohibit Slavery in certain Territories." _The bills then passed both Houses without a division_; and on the morning of the 3d of March, 1820, the "National Intelligencer" contained an exulting article, entitled "The Question Settled." Another paper, published in Baltimore, immediately after the passage of the Compromise, vindicated it as a perpetual compact, which could not be disturbed. The language is so clear and strong that I will read it, although it has been already quoted by my able and excellent friend from Ohio [Mr. CHASE]. "_It is true, the Compromise is supported only by the letter of a law repealable by the authority which enacted it; but the circumstances of the case give to this law a MORAL FORCE equal to that of a positive provision of the Constitution; and we do not hazard anything by saying that the Constitution exists in its observance._ Both parties have sacrificed much to conciliation. _We wish to see the COMPACT kept in good faith_, and trust that a kind Providence will open the way to relieve us of an evil which every good citizen deprecates as the supreme curse of this country."[54] [54] Niles's Weekly Register, March 11, 1820.