The admission of Maine and Missouri raised the number of states to twenty-four. No more were admitted for sixteen years. When Missouri applied for admission as a state, Arkansas was (1819) organized as a territory. 311. The Second Election of Monroe. This bitter contest over the exclusion of slavery from the country west of the Mississippi shows how completely party lines had disappeared in 1820. In the course of that year, electors of a President were to be chosen in the twenty-four states. That slavery would play an important part in the campaign, and that some candidate would be put in the field by the people opposed to the compromise, might have been expected. But there was no campaign, no contest, no formal nomination. The members of Congress held a caucus, but decided to nominate nobody. Every elector, it was well known, would be a Republican, and as such would vote for the reëlection of Monroe and Tompkins. And this almost did take place. Every one of the 229 electors who voted was a Republican, and all save one in New Hampshire cast votes for Monroe. But this one man gave his vote to John Quincy Adams. He said he did not want Washington to be robbed of the glory of being the only President who had ever received the unanimous vote of the electors. March 4, 1821, came on Sunday. inaugurated on Monday, March 5. SUMMARY Monroe was therefore 1. The dull times on the seaboard, the cheap land in the West, the love of adventure, and the desire to "do better," led, during 1814-1820, to a most astonishing emigration westward. 2. The rush of population into the Mississippi valley caused the admission of six states into the Union between 1816 and 1821. 3. The question of the admission of Missouri brought up the ubject of shutting slavery out of the country west of the Mississippi, which ended in a compromise and the establishment of the line 36° 30'. 1 For the compromise read Woodburn's Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise (in Report American Historical Association, 1893, pp. 251-297); McMaster's History of the People of the United States, Vol. IV., Chap. 39. CHAPTER XXII THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE 312. Improvement in Means of Travel. We have now considered two of the results of the rush of population from the seaboard to the Mississippi valley; namely, the admission of five new Western states into the Union, and the struggle over the extension of slavery, which resulted in the Missouri Compromise. But there was a third result, the actual construction of highways of transportation connecting the East with the West. Along the seaboard, during the five years which followed the war, great improvements were made in the means of 1 From an old engraving. Passengers from Philadelphia landed here from the steamboat and took stage for New Brunswick. travel. The steamboat had come into general use, and, thanks to this and to good roads and bridges, people could travel from Philadelphia to New York between sunrise and sunset on a summer day, and from New York to Boston in fortyeight hours. The journey from Boston to Washington was now finished in four days and six hours, and from New York to Quebec in eight days. In the West there was much the same improvement. The Mississippi and Ohio swarmed with steamboats, which came up the river from New Orleans to St. Louis in twenty-five ever, Poughkeepsie West Point. Long I.Si. LONG I Brooklyn days and went down with the current in eight. Little, howhad been done to connect the East with the West. Until the appearance of the steamboat in 1812, the merchants of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, and a host of other towns in the interior bought the produce of the Western settlers, and floating it down the Ohio and the Mississippi sold it at New Orleans for cash, and with the money purchased goods at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and carried them over the mountains to the West. Some went in sailing vessels up the Hudson from New York to Albany, were wagoned to the Falls of the Mohawk, and then loaded in "Schenectady boats," which were pushed up the Mohawk by poles to Utica, and then by canal and river to Oswego, on Lake Ontario. From Oswego they went in sloops to Lewiston on the Niagara River, whence they were carried in ox wagons to Buffalo, and then in sailing vessels to Westfield, and by Chautauqua Lake and the Allegheny River to Pittsburg. Goods from Philadelphia and Baltimore were hauled in great Conestoga wagons drawn by four and six horses across the mountains to Pittsburg. The RE TRANSPORTATION, ECEIVES at his Store, No. 467, Market, above Twelfth street, MERCHANDIZE intended for Pittsburg, and any of the towns on the main roads leading thereto. And for all the principal towns in the Southern, Western or Eastern States, which are forwarded with the utmost care, and on the most reasonable terms. The convenience of an establishment where single packages or larger parcels can be dispatched without delay, has been long wanted in this city. The obvious utility of it therefore requires no comment. march 14 |