1819, a bill for admission came up, an antislavery amendment, introduced by James Tallmadge of New York, passed the House by the close vote of 87 to 86; but the Senate refused to accept it, and the bill went over.

The

During 1819 many northern legislatures and public meetings declared that Missouri must never be a slave state. When Congress reassembled in December, 1819, a bill passed the House to admit Maine (at that time a "district" of Massachusetts) as a new state; and another bill for the admission of Missouri. To the latter the House, by a test vote of 94 to 86, added an amendment prohibiting slavery in Missouri. Senate united the two measures into one bill, but instead of the House prohibition accepted the amendment of Senator Thomas of Illinois, forever prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30' north latitude, except in Missouri. After a few days of great excitement, the House accepted the Thomas amendment as a compromise; Maine was admitted at once, and the people of Missouri were allowed to form a slaveholding constitution.

The Missouri constitution was found to make it the duty of the legislature to prevent the coming in of free negroes. This provision produced a second uproar and led to a second compromise, engineered by Henry Clay in 1821, by which the legislature of Missouri agreed to make no law infringing on the rights of citizens of other states; and Missouri was at last admitted to the Union.

The essence of the Missouri Compromise was the drawing of a geographical line across the Louisiana Purchase, north of which there were to be no slaveholding territories, and no slaveholding states except Missouri; that is, the act continued as far as the western boundary, the old geographical separation of slaveholding and free territory along Mason and Dixon's line and the line of the Ohio River. The compromise thus excluded slavery from the larger part of the Louisiana

Purchase, and also recognized the right of Congress to deal with slavery in the territories.

The compromise had plenty of enemies on both sides. John Randolph of Virginia politely called it "a dirty bargain." John Quincy Adams, when his friend Calhoun threatened secession, made perhaps the first prophecy of a civil war when he asked whether in such a case "the population of the North. . . would fall back upon its rocks bound hand and foot to starve, or whether it would not retain its powers of locomotion to move southward by land."

John Adams, Memoirs,

IV. 530

mary

The West began to come forward about the year 1815 as a vital part of the nation and as a great political force in the national government. It was settled rapidly and tumul- 252. Sumtuously, so that in 1820 there were 2,600,000 people west of the mountains. They came from the East in four main streams of settlement: (1) from New England and the middle states to the belt of country between the Lakes and the Ohio; (2) across the mountains from Virginia, North Carolina, and western Pennsylvania, to build up Kentucky and Tennessee; (3) from the South to southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; (4) from the Carolinas and Georgia westward to build up the communities of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

At first the West was all frontier and had many of the disadvantages of frontier life, — poverty, ignorance, and popular excitement, but there was a sound and strong fiber in the people. Congress began to recognize the importance of the West by building the National Road and choosing Henry Clay to be Speaker; and the Erie Canal gave an outlet to the sea. As a result of slavery, the western communities began to be divided, and took part in the great contest of 1820 over the admission of Missouri, by which all the region west of the Mississippi, like that east of it, was divided into a free and a slaveholding section.

Suggestive topics

Search topics

TOPICS

(1) What part of the country east of the Mississippi is prairie ? (2) What became of the big trees in the West? (3) Why was there no early road from Philadelphia directly west to Pittsburg? (4) Why did the western states soon elect their judges? (5) Why was Henry Clay a great Speaker? (6) How did slaves come to be in Missouri?

(7) Chicago up to 1829. (8) St. Louis up to 1829. (9) The road from Rochester to Buffalo. (10) Plank roads. (11) Flatboats on the Ohio and Mississippi. (12) Indian attacks on river travelers. (13) Traveling on the Cumberland Road. (14) Traveling on the Erie Canal. (15) Early western schools. (16) Campmeeting scenes. (17) Early life of Henry Clay. (18) Arguments for the Compromise of 1820. (19) Objections to the Compromise. (20) Why did the colonization of negroes in Africa fail?

Geography

Secondary authorities

Sources

Illustrative works

Pictures

REFERENCES

See maps, pp. 291, 300; Semple, Geographic Conditions, 150168, 246-277; Turner, New West.

Hart, Formation of the Union, §§ 119-127, 136; Turner, New West; Schouler, United States, II. 205-278, III. 96-109, 134–173; McMaster, United States, III. 123-142, 459-495, IV. 381-429, 570– 601, V. 13-18, 170-175; Adams, United States, IX. 148-174; Larned, History for Ready Reference, III. 2341, 2925, V. 3359; Higginson, Larger History, 390-393, 404-422; Wilson, American People, III. 234-255; Hinsdale, Old Northwest, 313-328, 351367, 380-392; Hosmer, Mississippi Valley, 153–167; Sparks, Expansion, 220-274; Schurz, Henry Clay, I. 1-47, 137-146, 172202; Roosevelt, T. H. Benton, 1-20, 32-40; McLaughlin, Lewis Cass, 1-33, 95-132; Gilman, James Monroe, 128-143, 147–158, 191-202.

--

Hart, Source Book, §§ 90-93,

Contemporaries, III. §§ 135–141,

- Source Readers, III. §§ 11, 34-39, 42-53; MacDonald, Select Documents, nos. 35-42; Old South Leaflets, no. 108; Caldwell, Survey, 142-144, 233-245; Johnston, American Orations, II. 33-101. See N. Eng. Hist. Teachers' Ass'n, Syllabus, 342–343, – Historical Sources, § 83.

Bryant, Hunter of the Prairies; Cooper, The Prairie; J. E. Cooke, Leather Stocking and Silk; Edward Eggleston, Circuit Rider; A. G. Riddle, Ansel's Cave.

Wilson, American People, III.; Sparks, Expansion.

CHAPTER XX.

THE NEW NATIONAL SPIRIT (1815-1829)

factures and com

merce

AFTER the War of 1812 the population, wealth, and national feeling of the United States advanced with leaps and bounds. An immense export and import trade sprang up again; 253. Manuand the war taxes brought in so much revenue that they could safely be given up soon after the peace. A commercial treaty with Great Britain (1815) removed some of the impediments to trade with that country. In 1818 the question of the northern fisheries was adjusted by a treaty with Great Britain (still in force) which allows American fishermen three privileges: (1) to take fish inshore (that is, inside a line parallel with the coast and three miles from shore) on parts of the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador; (2) to dry and cure fish on unsettled parts of those coasts; (3) to enter harbors of settled coasts for shelter, wood, and water. The treaty

also provided for a boundary on the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains; and for the joint occupation of Oregon, which then meant the disputed region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific.

The rush of importations was disturbing to the new American manufactures. During the embargo times some of the capital which could not be used in shipping, went into little mills for weaving coarse cottons and woolens. At the outbreak of war in 1812 import duties were doubled, and the home manufacturers had almost a monopoly of the market; if foreign importations were to be admitted at the old rate of duty after the war ended, it seemed more than the home manufacturers could stand.