Massachusetts Makes a Constitution of such a promise, admitted it by proclamation. While the Missouri Compromise was pending, the people of Massachusetts residing in the District of Maine, after several unsuccessful attempts to organize a separate State government, completed a constitution on the 29th of October, 1819, in convention at Portland.* Massachusetts had given its formal assent in June. The constitution was ratified by the electors on the 6th of December; Massachusetts made a formal cession of title to the District on the 25th of February, 1820, and on the 3d of March the State was admitted. At this time the line of the frontier extended four thousand one hundred miles, and the settled area was nearly five hundred and nine thousand square miles. Population was rapidly increasing and now numbered nearly ten millions.† Since the opening of the century the centre of population had moved westward fifty miles. More than one-sixth of the population was in slavery. Though the urban population was increasing, less than half a million souls were to be found in cities.§ New York, the largest, * The Debates and Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Maine, 1819-20, and Amendments subsequently made to the Constitution. [Edited by Charles E. Nash.] Augusta Maine Farmers' Almanac Press, 1894. + 9,633,822. $1,538,022. § Alexandria, District of Columbia, 8218; Norfolk, Virginia, 8478; Portland, Maine, 8581; Cincinnati, Ohio, 9642; Providence, Rhode Island, 11,767; Richmond, Virginia, 12,067; Albany, New York, 12,630; Salem, Massachusetts, 12,731; Washington, District of Columbia, 13,247; Southwark, Pennsylvania, 14,713; Northern Liberties, Pennsylvania, 19,678; Charleston, contained scarcely one hundred and twenty-five thousand; Philadelphia and Baltimore, each, half as many; Boston less than one-third. New Orleans was larger than Charleston. Territorial subdivisions indicated what movements in population were in progress, and a great body of immigrants was impatiently awaiting the extinguishment of the Indian title in the Northwest and the Southwest. As a refuge for fugitive slaves the Floridas had long been a cause of complaint to the States along the Southern border. As the peninsula belonged to a weak nation, there was some hope that the cause would cease. Partly on this account, but principally in compliance with the aggressive policy of slavocracy, Congress, on the 15th of January, 1811, by resolution declared that the United States could not without serious disquietude see any part of the Floridas pass into the hands of a foreign power, and that a due regard for the safety of the United States compelled them to occupy the territory-subject to future negotiation. On the same day the President was authorized to take possession of East Florida-the country south of Georgia and Mississippi Territory and east of the Perdido—and, on the 12th of February, to take possession of the remainder of the country then called West Florida. The peninsula thus became a military possession of the United States. This, too, South Carolina, 24,780; New Orleans, Louisiana, 27,176; Boston, Massachusetts, 43,298; Baltimore, Maryland, 62,738; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 63,802; New York, 123,706. The urban population aggregated 475,135. Pushing the Republic Westward was a Southern question, as the public thought, and the unprecedented act of Congress met with general approval. Undoubtedly the peninsula would have been held by the United States successfully had war followed, but the treaty of cession, concluded on the 22d of February, 1819,* brought matters to an amicable settlement. Of greatest importance, as time passed, was the clause in the treaty defining the western boundary of a portion of the Louisiana purchase. There were those who asserted, and John Quincy Adams was among the number, that the United States had acquired a just claim as far west as the Rio Grande -an idea which twenty-six years later was revived in the demand for the "reannexation" of Texas. Until March 30, 1822, the Floridas continued under a military government, responsible to the President. On that day they were united under a Territorial organization of the usual form, but the lack of roads and waterways between the eastern and western parts compelled a departure from the usual judicial organization. Two superior courts were established-one for the eastern and one for the western part. Twenty-two States and two Territories were now organized east of the Mississippi, and, to the west, one Territory and two States. A change in Territorial government, in the nature of a reform, was made by the act of Congress of February 5, 1825, affecting Michigan. Its Governor and Legislative Council were empowered to * Treaties and Conventions, pp. 1016-1023. divide the Territory into townships, and to incorporate any of them. Henceforth county officers were to be elected by popular vote. These were important steps towards independent and responsible local government. It was an application of civil notions long prevalent in New England and New York, but now for the first time applied by Congress to a Territory. Its appearance in Michigan is explained by the nativity of the people, who, for the most part, had emigrated from New York and New England. The reform thus early introduced into Michigan was a sign of the times, and particularly in the North. The laws on local government soon after passed by the Michigan Legislature became the nucleus of articles on local government, taxation, and finance which, nearly twenty years later, this State was the first to insert in a written constitution.* Few of the State boundaries were at this time settled, and scarcely a session of a Legislature passed without some act or resolution bearing on the disputed question. The greater part of the national boundaries was also unsettled. Save the sea-line, along the Atlantic and the Gulf, the boundaries of the country were yet diplomatic problems. The treaty with Great Britain, in 1783,† had provided for the appointment of commissioners to settle the entire boundary line between the two countries, and the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, made a more definite provision for a + Treaties and Conventions, pp. 375–379. * Of 1850. Id., pp. 399-405. Boundary Commissions and Their Work commission. On the 18th of January, 1822, the commissioners appointed under the sixth article of this treaty gave their decision at Utica,* and thus established the boundary from Northern New York through the St. Lawrence and the great lakes to the Lake of the Woods. The next portion settled was the continuation of the line to the Rocky Mountains. A convention, ratified at London on the 2d of April, 1828,† related to the further settlement of the boundary towards the Pacific coast, and it was agreed that the United States and Great Britain should occupy the Oregon country in common, but that joint occupation should cease at any time, on twelve months' notice to the other party, after the 20th of October, 1828. Thus the Oregon question was indefinitely postponed. The treaty of Ghent also provided for the appointment of commissioners to settle the northeastern boundary, and, by agreement of the same day, the commission that had agreed to the Oregon occupation. was empowered to act, but, finding it impossible to reach a satisfactory decision, they agreed that the matter in dispute should be submitted to an arbiter whose decision should be conclusive. These negotiations paved the way for an amicable settlement of the northeastern and northwestern boundaries, fifteen years later.‡ *Treaties and Conventions, pp. 407-410. + Id., pp. 429-432. Before this settlement was reached, Maine and Massachusetts, the States chiefly affected by the decision, passed a series of resolutions which constitute an important chapter in the history of State sovereignty and federal relations. See the resolu |