by what has since been
known as the Missouri Compromise.

The Missouri Compromise provided that Missouri should be a slave state;
this was to satisfy the South. On the other hand, it declared that all
the western territory north of the line which formed the southern
boundary of Missouri, should forever be free; this was to appease the
North.

But the cotton planters of the South grew more wealthy by the labor of
their slaves. More territory was needed for the extension of slavery.
Texas joined the United States and became a slave state.

Then followed a war with Mexico; and California, New Mexico and Utah
were taken from that country. Should slavery be allowed in these new
territories also?

At this time a new political party was formed. It was called the "Free
Soil Party," and the principle for which it contended was this: "_No
more slave states and no slave territory_."

This party was not very strong at first, but soon large numbers of Whigs
and many northern Democrats, who did not believe in the extension of
slavery, began to join it.

Although the Whig party refused to take any position against the
extension of slavery, there were many anti-slavery Whigs who still
remained with it and voted the Whig ticket--and one of these men was
Abraham Lincoln.

The contest between freedom and slavery became more fierce every day. At
last another compromise was proposed by Henry Clay.

This compromise provided that California should be admitted as a free
state; that slavery should not be prohibited in New Mexico and Utah;
that there should be no more markets for slaves in the District of
Columbia; and that a new and very strict fugitive-slave law should be
passed.

This compromise is called the "Compromise of 1850." It was in support
of these measures that Daniel Webster made his last great speech.

It was hoped by Webster and Clay that the Compromise of 1850 would put
an end to the agitation about slavery. "Now we shall have peace," they
said. But the agitation became stronger and stronger, and peace seemed
farther away than ever before.

In 1854, a bill was passed by Congress to organize the territories of
Kansas and Nebraska. This bill provided that the Missouri Compromise
should be repealed, and that the question of slavery in these
territories should be decided by the people living in them.

The bill was passed through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas of
Illinois. There was now no bar to the extension of