, I., 1170.] providing that
further introduction of slavery be prohibited and that all children
born within the state after admission should be free at the age of
twenty-five years. [Footnote: See amended form in House Journal, 15
Cong., 2 Sess., 272.] Tallmadge had already showed his attitude on
this question when in 1818 he opposed the admission of Illinois
under its constitution, which seemed to him to make insufficient
barriers to slavery. Brief as was the first Missouri debate, the
whole subject was opened up by arguments to which later discussion
added but little. The speaker, Henry Clay, in spite of the fact that
early in his political career he had favored gradual emancipation in
Kentucky, led the opposition to restriction. His principal reliance
was upon the arguments that the evils of slavery would be mitigated
by diffusion, and that the proposed restriction was
unconstitutional. Tallmadge and Taylor, of New York, combated these
arguments so vigorously and with such bold challenge of the whole
system of slavery in new territories, that Cobb, of Georgia,
declared, "You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean
cannot put out, which seas of blood can only extinguish.
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