The Hartford Convention, just 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, of which we have all heard.  Senator Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois, proposed this compromise.  The terms of it admitted Missouri with slaves, but prohibited slavery in any other portion of the Louisiana Purchase north of a certain specified latitude, which was the Southern boundary of Missouri.  This quelled the matter for many years, but most of us have seen the celebrated steel engraving, where Henry Clay stands speaking on this question, and pouring oil on the troubled