. The Civil War : the national view . ivilized world. That acquisitionadded at a stroke 1,182,752 square miles of territory andcarried the boundaries of the republic westward to theRocky Mountains. Louisiana, admitted in 1812, was thefirst State carved from that territory; Missouri, in 1821,the second; Arkansas, in 1836, the third—all slave sudden and unexpected controversy over the admissionof Missouri, for the first time brought home to the Ameri-can people the question whether a territorial limit shouldbe set to slavery. The opinion of the people was dividedbut the restrictionist
. The Civil War : the national view . ivilized world. That acquisitionadded at a stroke 1,182,752 square miles of territory andcarried the boundaries of the republic westward to theRocky Mountains. Louisiana, admitted in 1812, was thefirst State carved from that territory; Missouri, in 1821,the second; Arkansas, in 1836, the third—all slave sudden and unexpected controversy over the admissionof Missouri, for the first time brought home to the Ameri-can people the question whether a territorial limit shouldbe set to slavery. The opinion of the people was dividedbut the restrictionists triumphed and all that portion of theLouisiana Purchase lying north of the line 36° 30, except-ing the State of Missouri, was assigned and set off as freesoil forever. Although there were slaves in the NorthernStates in 1820, at the time of the Missouri Compromise,slavery as an institution did not exist at the North and thegreat Compromise extended the zone of free soil to theRocky Mountains. Thus it appeared to many, in 1820, T. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 17 that the final boundary on slavery had been set; that itcould go no further and that It was in course of ultimateextermination. Population was almost equally divided between the freeStates in 1790 (1,968,453), and the slave States (1,961,-374) ; also in 1800 (free States, 2,684,616, slave States,2,621,316) ; and again in 1810 (free States, 3,758,910, slaveStates, 3,480,902) ; but in 1820, the year of the MissouriCompromise, the free States contained a larger proportionthan ever before (5,152,372, slave States, 4,485,819), Itwas the preponderance of the North, in 1820, together withthe limitation of slave territory under the terms of theCompromise which now alarmed the South. For the firsttime the institution of slavery seemed in danger, not alonebecause of lack of population at the South as compared withthat at the North, but rather because of the limitation ofthe area open to slavery: the acquisition of the Louisianacou
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidcivilwarnati, bookyear1906
