Stokes, Montfort

Autograph letter signed ("M Stokes"), 4 pages (9 7/8 x 8 in.; 250 x 204 mm), Washington, D.C., 6 March 1820, to Archibald DeBow Murphey; formerly folded. Tan half-morocco clamshell box.

Adrian Hoffman Joline (d. 1912, his sale, Anderson Galleries, 15 December 1914, lot 949)

formerly folded, quite clean.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Senate witness to the fight over the Missouri Compromise.

Montfort Stokes (1762-1842) was a U.S. Senator from North Carolina when a bill to enable the people of the Missouri Territory to draft a constitution and form a government preliminary to admission into the Union came before the House of Representatives in February 1819. Amendments offered in the 1819 and 1820 sessions forbidding slavery in the territory, had the effect of renewing tensions between South and North going back to the Constitutional Convention, and foreshadowing the Civil War. Montfort, writing to his old friend Archibald Murphey (1777-1832), a superior court judge who had recently retired to concentrate on his financial problems, describes the debate which extended from 8-17 February 1820. The letter is dated four days after the House-Senate conference agreed to the Senate's version, the House voted to allow slavery in Missouri and then voted to prohibit slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line.

The Senator excuses himself for not writing: "The truth is, we from the Slave holding States have, (as our negroes say) had a hard row to carry. It was only on friday last, after a debate of nearly Six weeks, that we succeeded in admitting the people of Missouri to form a Constitution without compelling them to exclude Slavery. The excitement which this question had produced in the Northern and Eastern States, and which the artifices of the Ambitious had greatly increased, caused it to be viewed as one of the most import[ant]questions that ever came before Congress since the adoption of the Constitution. It was not the mere question of restricting Missouri that gave it this importance, but the principles avowed by some of the most influential men on the side of restriction. For instance, Mr. King of N.Y. declared that there was no Law of Congress or of any State that did or could enable a man to make or hold in slavery his fellow man ... and that although he did not wish to see the right to hold Slaves disturbed in the old States, the Constitution containing a kind of compact in favor of Slave owners, yet that in all new States he held it Congress had a right not only to prohibit the introduction of Slavery, but to declare those that were now there free. This doctrine is so alarming to the slave holding States that if carried to the extend[sic] contended for by Mr. King, it must have produced a civil war or a separation of the Union, and perhaps both. Considering the excitement before mentioned considering the strength and political power of the non Slave holding States, it is a matter of astonishment that we  succeeded in preventing the restriction."

Stokes goes on to list the Senators from free states who sided with the South, including New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Illinois. He passes on to the House of Representatives and celebrates "The Independence of several members from the Northern States ..." in similar fashion " ... without these 13 magnanimous votes we had no chance of avoiding the restriction being rivitted[sic] on Missouri. ... The Territory from which we have excluded Slavery, is yet Indian Country, and in my opinion will & ought to remain so for many years to come."