ates on a payment of $5,000,000, to be applied in
satisfying the claims of American citizens against Spain. The Sabine River,
instead of the Rio Grande, was made the dividing line between the United
States and Spanish territory. The line was to run from the mouth of the
Sabine to the 32d parallel, thence north to the Red River and along it to
the 100th meridian, thence north to the Arkansas and along that river to
its source on the 42d parallel, and thence west to the Pacific. War with
Spain was thus averted.

[Sidenote: The slavery issue]

While the Florida question was under consideration, there arose another far
more momentous to America. Free labor in the North and slave labor in the
South were brought squarely face to face. Slave labor was fast rising in
value. The new lands of the lower Mississippi opened a vast field for the
employment of slaves in the production of cotton, sugar and tobacco. It was
believed the extension of slavery into that new territory would save it
from gradual extinction. The interstate traffic in slaves was viewed with
abhorrence by many leading men in the South. John Randolph, while upholding
slavery, denounced the traffic that was carried on in the Southern
plantations. On the other hand it was seen that compromise would be of
little value if the North only was to be permitted to increase its power by
the admission of new States. New slave States as well were demanded by the
Southerners.

[Sidenote: Contention over Missouri]

In March, the citizens of Missouri had asked permission to form a State
constitution and to be admitted into the Union. It was tacitly understood
that slavery might be carried into territory east of the Mississippi
belonging originally to the existing slave States. But Louisiana, west of
the Mississippi, belonged to the whole of the United States rather than to
any one of the several States. The question now arose whether Congress
should establish slavery anew in territory of the United States. The
alternative was presented to the people of the North whether to submit to
the demands of the South or to consent to a dissolution of the Union.
Though represented by a majority in Congress, the Northern States were
defeated after a long struggle. John Quincy Adams doubted if Congress,
under the American Constitution, had the right to prohibit slavery in a
territory where it already existed. "If a dissolution of the Union should
result from the slave question," he wrote