82 a short history of the united states
for Spain to sell us this troublesome territory, he argued. The result
was the Adams- Onís Treaty of February 22 , 1819 , by which Spain
ceded Florida to the United States and, in return, the United States
agreed to assume the claims of American citizens against Spain to the
extent of $ 5 million. In addition, the western boundary of the Louisi-
ana Purchase was determined and the United States inherited the
claims of Spain to the northwest country beyond the Louisiana terri-
tory.
Quite obviously the nation was growing in more ways than Calhoun
imagined. New states had been admitted to the Union during the past
decade: Louisiana in 1810 , Indiana in 1816 , Mississippi in 1817 , and Il-
linois in 1818. Then, in 1819 , Congress took up the requests for state-
hood from Alabama and Missouri. There was no problem in granting
Alabama’s admission, but Missouri’s unleashed a storm of objections
that almost resulted in the breakup of the Union.
The Missouri Territory had been carved out of the Louisiana Pur-
chase, and it sought admission as a slave state. If granted it would be
the first state totally located west of the Mississippi River. But it
would also upset the numerical balance between free and slave states.
This was obviously a situation that called for compromise, but neither
the slave nor free states seemed prepared to reconcile their demands
with each other’s needs. The matter came to a head when Represen-
tative James Tallmadge of New York introduced an amendment to the
Missouri enabling act which prohibited the further introduction of
slaves into the territory and mandated the emancipation of all slaves
subsequently born in Missouri when they reached the age of twenty-
fi ve.
Southerners were infuriated by this bold attempt to allow Congress
to outlaw slavery in the territories. They insisted they had a right under
the Constitution to take their slaves anywhere in the territories and were
determined to protect that right under all circumstances. After all, the
Constitution protected property; and slaves, according to southerners,
were property. The debate in Congress grew more and more heated
with each passing day. “If you persist,” Representative Thomas W.
Cobb of Georgia shouted at Tallmadge, “the Union will be dissolved.
You have kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot put
out, which seas of blood can only extinguish.”