tion of Monroe]

[Sidenote: Missouri admitted to Statehood]

The 4th of March fell on a Sunday, and Monroe was the first President to be
inaugurated on the 5th. Missouri was admitted conditionally, and, on August
10, the President proclaimed its admission as the twenty-fourth State amid
a tempest of political excitement. The contest over the slavery question
was now supposed to be forever settled. In the debates of 1821, the House
stood firmly against Missouri's admission as a slave State, and the Senate
was equally determined that the colored citizens of other States should be
denied citizenship in Missouri if the people so desired. At last it came to
a conference committee. It was decided that the State should be admitted,
as soon as its Legislature would agree that the section of the Constitution
in question should not be construed as authorizing a law excluding any
citizens of other States from the immunities and privileges to which they
were entitled under the Constitution. The Legislature of Missouri gave this
pledge, but it remained open whether free negroes and mulattoes were
citizens in other States, and whether they were to be made citizens in
Missouri. In the admission of Missouri there was for the first time an
unmixed issue on the question of a free government or a slave-holding
government in the United States. Doubtful dealings on the part of the
Senators from Indiana and Illinois were followed by an attempt to make
these States both slave-holding States, in face of the binding law of the
Ordinance of 1787. A popular movement led by Governor Edward Coles of
Illinois defeated this project.

[Sidenote: Liberia]

[Sidenote: Junius Brutus Booth]

On May 5, the territory of Liberia was secured on the west coast of Africa,
and a colony was founded for the repatriation of negro slaves, with
Monrovia for a capital. During this same period Junius Brutus Booth made
his first appearance in America, as Richard III., at Richmond. Late in the
year the remains of Andre, the British officer who was shot as a spy during
the American Revolution, were placed on a British ship for interment in
Westminster Abbey.

1822

[Sidenote: Greek independence declared]

[Sidenote: Sack of Chios]

[Sidenote: Kanaris' exploit]

Greek independence was declared on January 27. After the fall of Ali Pasha
in February, the Sultan was able to turn his undivided attention to the
Greek revolt. In March, a body of Samian revolu