819; Maine, 1820; Missouri, 1821.

%308. Slave and Free States.%--In the second place, it brought about
a great struggle over slavery. You remember that when the thirteen
colonies belonged to Great Britain slavery existed in all of them; that
when they became independent states some began to abolish slavery; and
that in time five became free states and eight remained slave states.
Slavery was also gradually abolished in New York and New Jersey, so that
of the original thirteen only six were now to be counted as slave
states. You remember again that when the Continental Congress passed the
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory lying between the
Ohio River and the Great Lakes, Pennsylvania and the Mississippi River,
it ordained that in the Northwest Territory there should be no slavery.
In consequence of this, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were admitted into
the Union as free states, as Vermont had been. Kentucky was originally
part of Virginia, and when it was admitted, came in as a slave state.
Tennessee once belonged to North Carolina, and hence was also slave
soil; and when it was given to the United States, the condition was
imposed by North Carolina that it should remain so. Tennessee,
therefore, entered the Union (in 1796) as a slave state. Much of what is
now Alabama and Mississippi was once owned by Georgia, and when she
ceded it in 1802, she did so with the express condition that it should
remain slave soil; as a result of this, Alabama and Mississippi were
slave states. Louisiana was part of the Louisiana Purchase, and was
admitted (1812) as a slave state because it contained a great many
slaves at the time of the purchase.

Thus in 1820 there were twenty-two states in the Union, of which eleven
were slave, and eleven free. Notice now two things: 1. That the dividing
line between the slave and the free states was the south and west
boundary of Pennsylvania from the Delaware to the Ohio, and the Ohio
River; 2. That all the states in the Union except part of Louisiana lay
east of the Mississippi River. As to what should be the character of our
country west of that river, nothing had as yet been said, because as yet
no state lying wholly in that region had asked admittance to the Union.

%309. Shall there be Slave States West of the Mississippi
River?%--But when the people rushed westward after the war, great
numbers crossed the Mississippi and settled on the Missouri River, and
as they were now ve