ust after our successful war with Great
Britain, proposed some amendments to the Constitution, and justified
secession as a remedy for an uncongenial union, but one that "should not
be resorted to except when absolutely necessary." They confirmed the
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. The Democrats openly charged that
the object of the convention was disunion. The Federalist party went to
pieces. A new National Bank was established--in 1816--to continue twenty
years. In 1817 Indiana, the second State from the Northwest Territory,
became a member of the Union, with free labor. She was the 19th State,
and asked permission to hold slaves, but Congress prohibited slavery
north of the Ohio river. The North had ere this freed or sold her
slaves, but the institution was legalized in the Southern States.
There were now nineteen States and five territories, viz: Mississippi,
Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Alabama. Emigration poured into the
West. Each section of the young republic watched its own prosperity with
jealous interest. The Tariff question caused excited sectional feeling.
A tax on foreign goods for the sake of revenue only had satisfied
everybody; but a protective tariff was unpopular with the South. The
North, having manufactories, was glad to protect her infant industries.
The South had no manufactories--only agricultural products, and her
representatives combatted the measure with zeal (Explain). This tariff
bill has always caused opposition, and a glance at the daily doings at
Washington shows that it is still a bone of contention.

Mississippi was admitted as a state in 1817 with slaves; Illinois in
1818, free; and Alabama, in 1819, slave, making twenty-two states,
eleven free, and eleven slave states--an equal division. In 1819 Florida
was bought from Spain.

The greatest quarrel came when Missouri was talked of as a State. The
South wanted her left free to choose slave labor; the North feared that
this would give the Southern legislators control of the Senate. There
were numerous slaves in Missouri Territory, and she wanted to retain
them as a State. So angry were the debaters, and so heated the feeling,
that it was feared the country would go to pieces. This was as far back
as 1819. Maine, cut off from Massachusetts, now wanted to come into the
Union. As she would be a free labor State, the Southerners would not
vote for her admission unless Missouri could have slaves; hence the
Missouri Compromise Bill, o