ADMISSION OF FLORIDA AND IOWA.
At this time were admitted into the Union, and by a single bill, two States, which seem to have but few things in common to put them together—one the oldest, the other the newest territory—one in the extreme northwest of the Union, the other in the extreme southeast—one the land of evergreens and perpetual flowers, the other the climate of long and rigorous winter—one maintaining, the other repulsing slavery. It would seem strange that two territories so different in age, so distant from each other, so antagonistic in natural features and political institutions, should ripen into States at the same time, and come into the Union by a single act; but these antagonisms—that is, the antagonistic provisions on the subject of slavery—made the conjunction, and gave to the two young States an inseparable admission. It happened that the slave and free States had long before become equal in number, and a feeling of jealousy, or a calculation of policy operated to keep them so; and for that purpose to admit one of each character at the same time. Thus balancing and neutralizing each other, the bill for their admission was passed without a struggle, and furnished but little beyond the yeas and nays—these latter a scant minority in either House—to show the disposition of members. In the Senate the negatives were 9 to 36 yeas: in the House 48 to 144. Numerically the free and the slave States were thus kept even: in political power a vast inequality was going on—the increase of population being so much greater in the northern than in the southern region.