, "it is obvious that it must
shortly afterward be followed by a universal emancipation of the slaves."

[Sidenote: American Pension system inaugurated]

[Sidenote: Oregon in dispute]

During this same year Congress first granted pensions to needy veterans of
the Revolutionary War and soon afterward to the widows and children of dead
soldiers. Thus began the system of American pension legislation for former
American soldiers which was destined to grow to such gigantic proportions
in later years. Up to that time the number of stripes in the American flag
had been eighteen. Now a bill was approved reducing the number of stripes
to thirteen, the number of original States comprising the Union. The
number of stars was to be made equal to that of the States. Soon afterward,
the new flag, with twenty stars in its quartering, was first raised over
the halls of Congress. Shortly after this the Fifteenth Congress adjourned.
On October 20, a convention with Great Britain was signed respecting
fisheries and boundaries, giving to Americans the right to fish in
Newfoundland waters and renewing the agreement of 1815, making the 49th
parallel the boundary between the United States and British North America.
The convention also provided for the joint occupation of Oregon for ten
years longer.

The glossy finish to leather known as "patent" leather was first patented
in this year. Another notable invention of the time was the process of
engraving on soft steel.

[Sidenote: Illinois a State]

The second session of the American Congress was not called until late in
the year. Illinois was then admitted as the twenty-first State of the
Union.

1819

[Sidenote: Florida ceded by Spain]

[Sidenote: Southern Indians dispossessed]

[Sidenote: Alabama a state]

Early in the year Andrew Jackson was called to Washington. He was the hero
of the day. When he visited New York he was received with public honors. On
February 22, a treaty with Spain was adopted by which she surrendered all
claims to Florida and ceded West Florida. The cost of the war to the United
States had been forty million dollars. The year was marked by the enforced
retirement of large bodies of the Cherokees from Georgia to the
Mississippi. The Cherokees as well as the Creeks, the Choctaws and the
Chickasaws were greatly perturbed at the prospect of their final removal
from the land which the United States had guaranteed to them. Partly as a
result of these cha