estimated at from 1000 to 1200; but, after being greatly reduced by smallpox, they were attacked by the Sauk, who compelled them to abandon their territory about 1798 and take refuge west of the Missouri. In 1805 they were living near the mouth of the Platte River and numbered about 300. In 1823 they were again so decimated by smallpox that the remnant, about 80 persons, incorporated with the kindred Oto. The confederated tribes removed in 1882 from Nebraska to a reservation in Oklahoma, where they now reside, numbering altogether only 360. They are still steadily decreasing, and their agent reports that they have practically ceased all effort at self-support, owing to the money they receive in the shape of treaty and lease payments.
MISSOURI, University of. A State institution of learning founded in 1839 at Columbia, Mo. Academic work began in 1841. In 1867 a department of education was established, to which women were admitted in 1869, and soon after all departments were opened to them. The university comprises a graduate department, established in 1896, an academic department, and departments of education, law (1872), medicine (1873), military science and tactics (1890), a College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (1870), embracing a school of agriculture, an experiment station (1888), a school of engineering (1877), and a school of mines and metallurgy, situated at Rolla (1870). The university confers the bachelor's and master's degrees in arts, law, and science, the doctor's degree in medicine and philosophy, and the degrees of civil, electrical, mechanical, and sanitary engineer and engineer of mines. The only honorary degree conferred is that of Doctor of Laws. The university accepts the certificate of approved schools for admission. The faculty in 1902 numbered 102. The enrollment, including duplicates, was 1286, of whom 393 were women. The campus includes 32 acres in the southern part of the town, and near it are the experiment farm, of 618 acres, and the horticultural grounds, of 30 acres. The grounds. buildings. and equipment were valued at over $1,000,000. The endowment was about $2,500,000. The university library, including the departmental libraries, contained about 50,000 volumes.
MISSOURI COMPROMISE. In American history, an arrangement between the free and slave States, embodied chiefly in an act of Congress approved March 6, 1820, which provided for the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union with a constitution which allowed slavery, but which forever prohibited slavery in all the rest of the Louisiana territory lying north of latitude 36° 30′ N., that being the southern boundary line of Missouri. To balance the admission of Missouri as a slave State, Maine was admitted as a free State at the same time. In February, 1819, in the debate in Congress on the bill to admit Missouri into the Union, James W. Tallmadge, of New York, moved to amend the Missouri bill to the effect “that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, and that all children of slaves born within the State after the admission thereof in the Union shall be free.” The admission of Alabama in the same year without any prohibition against slavery made the number of ‘slave’ States and of ‘free’ States equal. The admission of Missouri as a ‘free’ State, therefore, would disturb the equilibrium. The bill with the Tallmadge amendment passed the House February 17, 1819, by a vote of 87 to 76. On March 2d the Senate passed the bill without the Tallmadge amendment. Two days later Congress adjourned and the question of Missouri went over to the next session. In December, 1819, another bill for the admission of Missouri was introduced, whereupon John W. Taylor, of New York, offered an amendment in the House which provided that as a condition of admission the State should be required to adopt a constitution forever prohibiting slavery within its limits. This gave rise to a prolonged and vigorous debate on the power of Congress to impose conditions upon the admission of a State into the Union. Those who upheld the power of Congress in the premises based their argument on the provision of the Constitution which empowers Congress to admit new States, the implication being that it may admit under any conditions which it may see fit to impose. Their opponents relied chiefly upon the doctrine of the equality of the States in the Federal system, and declared that Congress had no constitutional power to destroy that equality by attaching onerous conditions to admission of the new States. Meantime the situation was complicated by the application of Maine to be admitted with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The House of Representatives promptly passed a bill for this purpose, and when this bill came up for discussion in the Senate in January, 1820, the friends of slavery in Missouri, who were in a majority in the Senate, coupled the Maine bill with the bill to admit Missouri with slavery, and the Senate steadily refused to disconnect the two measures. In this situation the substance of the compromise was proposed by Senator Thomas, of Illinois, in an amendment which provided that Missouri should be admitted with a constitution allowing slavery, but that in all the rest of the Louisiana territory north of latitude 36° 30′ N. slavery or involuntary servitude should be forever prohibited. The bill with this amendment finally passed the Senate, February 18, 1820. The bill thus amended was coupled with the bill to admit Maine, and in this shape was sent to the House for concurrence. The House refused to agree to the combination, and the matter was then referred to a conference committee of the two Houses, which recommended that the Maine bill be passed separately, and that the Missouri bill should be passed with the Thomas amendment. To this report the House agreed. The separation of bills as distinct subjects was thus secured, and recognition was given to the claim of the Southerners that Congress had no power to impose such limitations as it saw fit upon any State as a condition of its admission to the Union. President Monroe approved the Maine bill on March 3, and the Missouri bill on March 6, 1820. Henry Clay, who was Speaker of the House, exerted his influence to bring about this result. In the next session the Constitution of Missouri, including a paragraph making it the duty of the Legislature to prevent the immigration of free negroes into the State, was presented to Congress for approval. This provoked a heated debate concerning the duty of the Federal Government to protect the citizens of each State in the exercise of their civil rights of citizenship in every other State.
