Under the skilful management of
Clay, a new compromise was framed, by which Missouri was required,
through her legislature, to promise that the objectionable clause
should never be construed to authorize the passage of any laws by
which any citizen of either of the states of the Union should be
excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities
to which such citizen was entitled under the Constitution of the
United States. This Missouri accepted, but the legislature somewhat
contemptuously added that it was without power to bind the state.
[Footnote: Niles' Register, XX., 388, cf. 300.]
While this debate was in progress, and the problem of the status of
Missouri, which had already established a constitution and claimed
to be a state, was under consideration, the question of counting the
Missouri vote in the presidential election of 1820 was raised. For
this a third compromise was framed by Clay, by which the result of
the election was stated as it would be with and without Missouri's
vote.
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