Maine, State of (U.S.A.)
Years: 1820 - 2057
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The territory of Missouri had first applied for statehood in 1817, and by early 1819 Congress was considering enabling legislation that would authorize Missouri to frame a state constitution.
When Representative James Tallmadge of New York attempted to add an antislavery amendment to that legislation, however, there ensued an ugly and rancorous debate over slavery and the government's right to restrict slavery.
Thomas Jefferson described the fear evoked by the crisis as “like a firebell in the night.”
The Tallmadge amendment prohibited the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and provided for emancipation of those already there when they reach age twenty-five.
The amendment had passed the House of Representatives, controlled by the more populous North, but failed in the Senate, which is equally divided between free and slave states.
Congress had adjourns without resolving the Missouri question.
When it reconvened in December 1819, Congress had been faced with a request for statehood from Maine, whose people had just adopted a constitution at town meetings on December 6, 1819.
The Senate passes a bill allowing Maine, currently a part of Massachusetts, to enter the Union as a free state and Missouri to be admitted without restrictions on slavery.
Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois proposes the Missouri Compromise to limit slavery above the southern border of Missouri.
His amendment would allow Missouri to become a slave state but bans slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36°30'.
Henry Clay then skillfully leads the forces of compromise.
The Massachusetts legislature forms the District of Maine on February 25, 1820, in preparation for Congress to admit the State of Maine to the union.
The decisive vote in the House of Representatives on February 25, 1820, admits Maine as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and makes “free soil” all western territories north of Missouri's southern border.
A new crisis arises, however, when ...
Enough northern congressmen object to the racial provision that Henry Clay is called upon to formulate the Second Missouri Compromise.
Maine is physically separate from the rest of Massachusetts.
Long-standing disagreements over land speculation and settlements had led to Maine residents and their allies in Massachusetts proper forcing an 1807 vote in the Massachusetts Assembly on permitting Maine to secede; the vote failed.
Secessionist sentiment in Maine was stoked during the War of 1812 when Massachusetts pro-British merchants opposed the war and refused to defend Maine from British invaders.
Massachusetts had agreed in the previous year to permit secession, sanctioned by voters of the rapidly growing region.
Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state on March 15, 1820.
The original state capital is Portland, Maine's largest city; it will be moved in 1832 to the more central Augusta.
Missouri enters the Union in 1820 as a slave state, balanced by the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, when on June 12 delegates in St. Louis, Missouri Territory approve a proposed state constitution, proclaiming that they "do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic (sic), by the name of "The State of Missouri".
American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, upon returning from his three-year tour of Europe, becomes the first professor of modern languages at Bowdoin College, his alma mater, as well as a part-time librarian.
Maine residents who paid taxes were to be issued a tax refund in 1837, as a consequence of the closing of the Second Bank of the United States, and a special census had been created to determine eligible recipients.
Penobscot County Census Representative Greeley thus began a census of the upper Aroostook River territory.
When word reached Provincial authorities, led by the newly appointed Sir John Harvey, that an official from Maine was offering money to settlers, New Brunswick authorities had had him arrested and taken to Fredericton.
Letters from New Brunswick had accused the Governor of Maine of bribery and threatened military action if Maine continued to exercise jurisdiction in the Aroostook river and its tributaries.
In response, Governor Robert Dunlap of Maine had issued a general order announcing that Maine had been invaded by a foreign power.
Both American and New Brunswick lumbermen were cutting timber in the disputed territory during the winter of 1838-1839, according to reports submitted to the Maine Legislature.
On January 24, 1839, the Maine Legislature had authorized the newly elected Governor John Fairfield to send the Maine State Land Agent, the Penobscot County Sheriff and a posse of volunteer militia to the upper Aroostook to pursue and arrest the New Brunswickers.
The posse leaves Bangor, Maine, on February 8, 1839.
Arriving at T 10 R 5, the posse establishes a camp at the junction of the St Croix Stream and the Aroostook River and begins confiscating New Brunswick lumbering equipment and sending any lumbermen caught and arrested back to be tried.
A group of New Brunswick lumbermen, on learning of these activities and unable to retrieve their oxen and horses, arms themselves by breaking into the arsenal in Woodstock, gathers their own posse, and seizes the Maine Land Agent and his assistants in the middle of the night.
The Maine officials are transported in chains to Woodstock where they are held for an "interview".
Terming the Americans "political prisoners", Sir John Harvey sends correspondence to Washington DC that he has to await instructions from London before he can act on the arrests.
In the meantime, he adds, he is exercising his responsibilities to ensure that the Aroostook is kept under British jurisdiction and demands removal from the region of all Maine forces.
He then sends his military commander to the T 10 R 5 campsite and orders the Maine militia to leave.
Captaon Rines and the others refuse, stating they are following orders and doing their duty.
The New Brunswick Military commander is then himself taken into custody by the Maine side.
On February 15, the Maine state Legislature authorizes one thousand additional volunteers to augment the posse now on the upper Aroostook River, led by Major General Isaac Hodsdon.
Additional correspondence from Sir John Harvey, along with reports that British Regulars are being brought up from the West Indies, that the Mohawk nation has offered their services to Quebec, and that New Brunswick forces are gathering on the St. John, result in the Issuance of General Order No. 7 on February 19, 1839, calling for a general draft of Maine Militia.
Mustered in Bangor, militia companies will be sent to the Upper Aroostook until February 26, 1839 when the early construction of Fort Fairfield on the Presque Isle River (built from seized stolen timber by the early posse) allows for troops to be camped on the eastern boundary.