There was a bold energy in this unprincipled proceeding which won for it public approbation, although it called down much animadversion, and congress discussed it for two years, endeavouring to pass a vote of censure, which the majority would not allow. In February, 1819, however, a treaty was negotiated at Washington, by which Spain ceded to the United States Florida and the adjacent islands. The king of Spain was dissatisfied with the treaty, and endeavoured to set it aside, but the United States, like General Jackson, had their way, and in 1820 the treaty was ratified.
In 1819 the southern portion of Missouri territory was formed into a territorial government, under the name of Arkansas, and in December of the same year, Alabama was admitted as a state into the Union. Early in 1820 also the province of Maine, which since 1652 had been attached to Massachusetts, was separated from it and became an independent state.
A violent controversy arose in congress on the subject of slavery, when Missouri first applied for authority to form a State government, which arrayed the South against the North, the slaveholding against the non-slaveholding states. Missouri, having been considered a portion of Louisiana, had derived from her connexion with the French and the Spaniards the custom of holding slaves, which she considered as her right. It was proposed, however, that in “admitting the territory to the privileges of a state, slavery, or involuntary servitude, should be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes of which the party should have been duly convicted; and that all children born within the said state after its admission into the Union should be free at the age of twenty-five.” This clause divided congress into two parties: the non-slaveholding states demanded the restriction; the southern and slave states rejected it. The contest of opinion was violent in the extreme. Two principles seemed involved in this question; not only resistance to slavery, but resistance to the interference of congress in the internal government of individual states; and hence many advocates of sound liberty and friends to the emancipation and elevation of the slave opposed the restrictive clause.
After much violent discussion, the Missouri question was settled by a compromise, which, while it allowed slavery in Missouri, prohibited it in all the territory of the United States north and west of the northern limits of Arkansas; and in August, 1821, Missouri became the twenty-fourth state in the Union.
In 1821 Monroe entered upon his second presidential term, having been re-elected, as was also Daniel Tomkins as vice-president.
The fourth census, taken in the year 1820, showed the population of the United States to be 9,625,734; about a million and a half of whom were slaves.
On the 7th of March in this year, General Jackson was appointed governor of Florida and Elijeus Fromentin chief-justice. The Spanish officers, very unwilling to give up their posts, threw many impediments in the way of the new government, and refused to give up the archives which had been stipulated for; and even when they were obtained, certain documents were kept back by Don Cavalla, the Spanish governor. But Jackson, who very well understood how to exercise authority, sent an armed force to bring Cavalla before him; and as he still refused, had him carried from his bed to prison, when he took possession of the papers, after which he was discharged. Again these summary measures were severely commented upon; but they were only according to Jackson’s mode of action—prompt, overbearing, and successful. Florida was divided into two counties, St. John’s, on the east of the Suwaney river, and Escambia on the west. Jackson’s term of office expired with the rising of congress, and he declined a re-appointment.
In 1822 a convention of navigation and commerce was concluded on terms of reciprocal and equal advantage between France and the United States. In the same year the ports of the West India Islands were opened to the American Republic by act of the British parliament.
The American commerce having for many years suffered greatly from the depredations of pirates in the West Indies, a small naval force was sent against them, which recaptured five American vessels in the vicinity of Matanzas in Cuba, and destroyed upwards of twenty piratical vessels. But depredations still continuing, a larger force was sent out the following year, under Commodore Porter, which broke up their retreats in these seas, and sent them to other hiding-places, whence they reappeared after a time.
In 1823 congress recognised the independence of the South American republics, and ministers were sent to Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Chili. The same year, articles of convention for the suppression of the African slave-trade were signed in London by agents sent for that purpose from the United States, and officers were commissioned by each nation to capture and condemn such ships as should be concerned in this illicit traffic.