abandoned all claim to the Pacific coast region south of the latitude of 54° 40'.

New States Admitted.-Several new States were admitted during the Monroe administration. These included two formed out of the territory which Georgia and South Carolina had ceded to the United States,-Mississippi, admitted in 1817, and Alabama, in 1819. Illinois, formed out of the Northwestern Territory, was admitted in 1818. Maine and Missouri soon afterward applied for admission.

The Missouri Compromise.-An important question now arose. In 1819 there were eleven slave and eleven free States. This gave the North and the South an equal representation in the Senate. The South was anxious to preserve that equality. The admission of Maine would give a preponderance to the free States. It was therefore desired by Southern members that Missouri should be admitted as a slave State. This was opposed by many Northern members, who strongly objected to the extension of slavery.

HENRY CLAY.

The debate over this question was long and bitter. It was ended in 1820 by a bill introduced by Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois, and strongly advocated by Henry Clay,1 the

1

Henry Clay was born in Virginia in 1777. He entered the Kentucky legislature in 1803, and was elected in 1806 to the House of Representatives, whose Speaker he became in 1811. He was at that time the leader of the war party, and was in later years distinguished as the advocate of several useful compromise measures. He served as Secretary of State under President John Quincy Adams, became a member of the Senate, and was three times an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency. He became the leader of the Whig party on its

Speaker of the House. This bill proposed that Missouri should be admitted as a slave State, but that slavery should forever be prohibited in any other part of the Western territory of the United States that lay north of the parallel of 36° 30'. Such was the character of the famous Missouri Compromise. It divided the country into a free North and a slave-holding South, and for the next thirty years removed this question out of politics. Maine, whose admission had been resisted, became a State March 15, 1820. Missouri was admitted August 10, 1821.

Public Improvements.-The Cumberland Road, a national highway to the West begun in 1806, had been extended from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling. It was now proposed to carry it to the Mississippi. It was gradually extended into Ohio, stretching farther and farther west, until in the end it was carried to the Mississippi by aid of the State governments. It was a broad, smooth, and solid highway, over which moved westward a seemingly endless train of emigrant wagons. Other public improvements were advocated, but none were carried out, the President thinking that he had no power under the Constitution to spend the public money for such purposes.

The Erie Canal.-Such public improvements were quite within the power of the States, and in 1817 a highly important one was begun in New York, that known as the Erie Canal. Its construction was mainly due to the unyielding perseverance of Governor De Witt Clinton. "Clinton's Ditch" it was called in derision by the opponents of the project.

The Erie Canal was intended to connect the waters of

formation, and died in 1852. Clay was the most distinguished orator of the South.

the Hudson River with those of Lake Erie. Its length was three hundred and sixty-three miles, and its construction an immense task, employing an army of laborers for eight years, during which they cut down forests, excavated rocks, carried the canal by locks up hill-sides and by aqueducts across rivers. Begun July

It has

4, 1817, it was completed in 1825, and has ever since been in active use. proved of immense advantage to New York City and State.1 Lafayette's Visit to America.-In 1824, near the close of Monroe's administration, Lafayette, the most distinguished foreign hero of the Revolution, visited this country at the request of Congress and on the invitation of the President.

1 When the water was let into the canal, in the autumn of 1825, the news was conveyed from Buffalo to New York by a row of cannon, about five miles apart, and fired in quick succession. That was one form of the telegraph of those days. Governor Clinton travelled by the canal from Buffalo to Albany, and by the Hudson River to New York, bringing a keg of water from Lake Erie which was poured with solemn ceremony into the harbor of New York. It indicated the marriage of the lake with the ocean. Before the canal was built it cost ten dollars and took three weeks to transport a barrel of flour from Buffalo to Albany. By the canal it could be sent through in a week, at a cost of thirty cents. To-day a constant procession of grain boats traverses the canal, day and night, from west to east, and one of boats laden with merchandise from east to west.

No man ever had a more enthusiastic reception. Forty years and more had passed since he left the United States. He was now nearly seventy, one of the last surviving friends and aides of Washington, and the whole people rose to do him honor.

He spent more than a year travelling through the nation, visiting every State, and being everywhere greeted with affection and enthusiasm. Some of the old soldiers who had served under him in the Revolution fainted with emotion on grasping his hand. On June 17, 1825, he took part in laying the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument. It was just fifty years after the battle.

LAFAYETTE.

Lafayette had spent much of his fortune in the American cause, and in recompense Congress voted him two hundred thousand dollars and twenty-four thousand acres of land.

He was invited to a dinner at the White House, given by President Adams, and having as guests the ex-Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, all old friends of Lafayette. His return to France was made in a new naval vessel, named in his honor the Brandywine, after the battle in which he had taken a prominent part.

Changes Seen by Lafayette.-To one who had not seen this country for forty years the changes must have seemed. stupendous. The population had grown from less than three millions to about eleven millions. The thirteen States had expanded to twenty-four. The settlements, which had long clung to the coast region, now stretched beyond the Mississippi. What he had known as the colonies in rebellion had now become one of the greatest nations on the

earth. The progress in agriculture, commerce, and manufacture had been immense. The flag of the United States was seen in all seas, and Europe was clothed with her cotton and fed with her grain. Peace, prosperity, and freedom ruled, and the country had fully started on its great

career.

The Presidential Election of 1824.-In the Presidential contest of 1824 there were four candidates in the field. But there was still only one well-defined party, and these candidates were nominated by their political friends. When the votes were counted it appeared that Andrew Jackson had received ninety-nine, John Quincy Adams eighty-four, William H. Crawford forty-one, and Henry Clay thirty-seven electoral votes. Jackson was evidently the choice of the people. But as he had not a majority of the whole electoral vote, the election was, by the Constitution, thrown into the House of Representatives and a choice made from the first three. Clay's friends supported Adams, and he was elected. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was chosen VicePresident.

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2. John Quincy Adams's Administration. Adams Unpopular.-Adams1 was not a popular President, though he proved a useful and an able one. He was

1 John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, the second President, was born in Massachusetts, 1767. He served as United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1803 to 1809, and afterward held important government positions, among them those of minister to England and Secretary of State. Two years after leaving the Presidential chair he was sent to Congress as a Representative, and retained this position until his death in 1848. While in Congress he was highly honored and respected, and showed such ability in debate that he was called "the old man eloquent."