It was hoped and believed that the settlement of the Missouri question and the compromise in reference to the remainder of the Louisiana cession had put the problem of negro slavery out of the realm of national politics. In fact, however, the struggle over these questions had introduced it into that realm, and had {109} first opened the eyes of the slaveholders to the bearings of the slavery interest upon all the questions of constitutional law and public policy. From the point of view of that interest their attitude toward all these questions was more and more determined as they came to understand more and more clearly the relation of these questions to that interest. While, therefore, the settlement and the compromise served to withdraw the question of slavery from the direct and immediate issue, they, at the same time, left it the secret influence over views and actions in many, if not most, directions. At the next session, beginning in December of 1821, propositions were introduced into the Senate to limit and decrease the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States courts, to make the Senate itself a court of appeal from the regular Judiciary in cases where a "State" should be a party, and to limit to two hundred the number of members in the House of Representatives. The purpose of all these projects is apparent. Indeed, their proposers said openly and frankly that their purpose was to lessen and limit the powers of the general Government in the interests of "States'-rights." It was natural, however, that the new spirit of particularism should attack the policies of the Government rather than the structure of the political system, or, more correctly, should undertake to control these policies before it sought to transform that system. [Sidenote: President Monroe and protection after 1820.] We have seen with what unanimity and national enthusiasm the protection of home industries was regarded, in the half decade between 1815 and 1820, as a measure indispensable to the attainment and maintenance of industrial independence. Not even Calhoun then understood the relation between this policy and the interests of slavery. The Presidents, Madison and {110} Monroe, were utterly oblivious to it. Even after the Missouri struggle, Mr. Monroe continued to recommend the protection of manufactures for the attainment of industrial independence as the true national policy. His annual messages of 1821 and of 1822 contain this recommendation. He either did not comprehend the relation of the slavery interests to the protective system or disregarded it. It could hardly have been the latter, for, although he was no radical supporter of slavery, he was a slaveholder and a very conservative man. [Sidenote: The committee on Manufactures.]