On the other hand, it was urged that slavery was incorporated in the system of society as established in Louisiana, which comprehended the Territory of Missouri, when purchased from France in 1803; that the faith of the United States was pledged by treaty to all the inhabitants of that wide domain to maintain their rights and privileges on the same footing with the people of the rest of the country; and consequently, that slavery, being a part of their state of society, it would be a violation of engagements to abolish it without their consent. Nor could the government, as they maintained, prescribe the abolition of slavery to any part of said Territory as a condition of being erected into a State, if they were otherwise entitled to it. It might as well, as they said, be required of them to abolish any other municipal regulation, or to annihilate any other attribute of sovereignty. If the government had made an ill-advised treaty in the purchase of Louisiana, they maintained it would be manifest injustice to make its citizens suffer on that account. They claimed that they were received as a slaveholding community on the same footing with the slave States, and that the existence or non-existence of slavery could not be made a question when they presented themselves at the door of the Capitol of the republic for a State charter. After much bitter and acrimonious discussion, the question was finally, through the exertions of Henry Clay, settled by a compromise, and a bill was passed for the admission of Missouri without any restriction as to slavery, but prohibiting it throughout the United States north of latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. Missouri was not declared independent until August, 1821. Previous to the passage of the bill for its admission, the people had formed a State constitution, a provision of which required the Legislature to pass a law "To prevent free negroes from coming to and settling in the State." When the constitution was presented to Congress, this provision was strenuously opposed. The contest occupied a greater part of the session; but Missouri was finally admitted on condition that no laws should be passed by which any free citizen of the United States should be prevented from enjoying those rights within the State to which he was entitled by the Constitution of the United States. Such was the Missouri Compromise, and though its settlement once more brought repose to the country and strengthened the bonds of fraternity and union between the States, its agitation in Congress was like the opening of a foul ulcer--the beginning of that domineering, impertinent, ill-timed, vociferous and vituperative opposition which has ever since been the leading characteristic of the abolition movement.