untries were
understood. The section speedily developed a wealth, enterprise, and
industry of which no one had before dreamed.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

The real peril involved in the acquisition of so much territory lay in
the certainty that it would revive the slavery quarrel that had been put
to sleep by the Missouri Compromise, nearly thirty years before. The
North demanded that slavery should be excluded from the new territory,
because it was so excluded by Mexican law, and to legalize it would keep
out emigrants from the free States. The South demanded the authorization
of slavery, since Southern emigrants would not go thither without their
slaves. Still others proposed to divide the new territory by the
Missouri Compromise line. This would have cut California in two near the
middle, and made one part of the province slave and the other free.
Altogether, it will be seen that trouble was at hand.

Before the outbreak of the Mexican War, Congressman David Wilmot, of
Pennsylvania, introduced the Proviso known by his name. It was a
proposal to purchase the territory from Mexico, provided slavery was
excluded. The introduction of the bill produced much discussion, and it
was defeated by the opposition of the South.

THE OREGON BOUNDARY DISPUTE.

Great Britain and the United States had jointly occupied Oregon for
twenty years, under the agreement that the occupancy could be ended by
either country under a year's notice to the other. Many angry debates
took place in Congress over the question whether such notice should be
given. The United States claimed a strip of territory reaching to
Alaska, latitude 54 deg. 40', while Great Britain claimed the territory
south of the line to the Columbia River. Congress as usual had plenty of
wordy patriots who raised the cry of "Fifty-four forty or fight," and it
was repeated throughout the country. Cooler and wiser counsels
prevailed, each party yielded a part of its claims, and made a middle
line the boundary. A minor dispute over the course of the boundary line
after it reached the Pacific islets was amicably adjusted by another
treaty in 1871.

STATES ADMITTED.

It has been stated that the bill for the admission of Iowa did not
become operative until 1846. It was the fourth State formed from the
Louisiana purchase, and was first settled by the French at Dubuque; but
the post died, and no further settlements were made until the close of
the Black Hawk War of 1832, aft