Editing James Monroe (section)

====Missouri Compromise====
{{Main|Missouri Compromise}}
In the period between 1817 and 1819, Mississippi,<ref>{{cite web |title=Welcome from the Mississippi Bicentennial Celebration Commission |url=http://ms200.org/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217064047/http://ms200.org/ |archive-date=February 17, 2017 |access-date=February 16, 2017 |publisher=Mississippi Bicentennial Celebration Commission}}</ref> Illinois,<ref name=":9">{{cite web |title=Alabama History Timeline: 1800–1860 |url=http://www.archives.alabama.gov/timeline/al1801.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160618035649/http://www.archives.alabama.gov/timeline/al1801.html |archive-date=June 18, 2016 |access-date=June 15, 2016 |website=alabama.gov}}</ref> and Alabama<ref name=":9" /> were recognized as new states. This rapid expansion resulted in a growing economic divide between the regions and a change of power in Congress to the detriment of the southern states, which viewed their plantation economy, which was dependent on slavery, as increasingly threatened.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Öhman |first=Martin |date=2013 |title=A Convergence of Crises: The Expansion of Slavery, Geopolitical Realignment, and Economic Depression in the Post-Napoleonic World |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44254303 |journal=Diplomatic History |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=419–445 |doi=10.1093/dh/dht018 |jstor=44254303 |issn=0145-2096}}</ref> In February 1819, a bill to enable the people of the [[Missouri Territory]] to draft a constitution and form a government preliminary to admission into the Union came before the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]]. During these proceedings, Congressman [[James Tallmadge, Jr.]] of New York "tossed a bombshell into the Era of Good Feelings"<ref>{{harvnb|Howe|2007|page= 147}}.</ref> by offering the [[Tallmadge Amendment]], which prohibited the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and required that all future children of slave parents therein should be free at the age of twenty-five years. After three days of rancorous and sometimes bitter debate, the bill, with Tallmadge's amendments, passed. The measure then went to the Senate, which rejected both amendments.<ref>{{harvnb|Dangerfield|1965|page= 111}}.</ref> A House–Senate [[conference committee]] proved unable to resolve the disagreements on the bill, and so the entire measure failed.{{sfn|Wilentz|2004|p=380}} The ensuing debates pitted the northern "restrictionists" (antislavery legislators who wished to bar slavery from the Louisiana territories and prohibit slavery's further expansion) against southern "anti-restrictionists" (proslavery legislators who rejected any interference by Congress inhibiting slavery expansion).{{sfn|Wilentz|2004|pp= 380, 386}}

During the following session, the House passed a similar bill with an amendment, introduced on January 26, 1820, by [[John W. Taylor (politician)|John W. Taylor]] of [[New York (state)|New York]], allowing Missouri into the union as a [[slave state]]. Initially, Monroe opposed any compromise that involved restrictions on slavery's expansion in federal territories. The question had been complicated by the admission in December of [[Alabama]], a slave state, making the number of slave and free states equal. In addition, there was a bill in passage through the House (January 3, 1820) to admit [[Maine]] as a [[free state (United States)|free state]].<ref>[[#Dixon|Dixon, 1899]] pp. 58–59</ref>{{efn|Maine is one of 3 states that were set off from already existing states (Kentucky and West Virginia are the others). The Massachusetts General Court passed enabling legislation on June 19, 1819, separating the "District of Maine" from the rest of the State (an action approved by the voters in Maine on July 19, 1819, by 17,001 to 7,132); then, on February 25, 1820, passed a follow-up measure officially accepting the fact of Maine's imminent statehood.|group=}} Southern congressmen sought to force northerners to accept slavery in Missouri by connecting Maine and Missouri statehood. In this plan, endorsed by Monroe, Maine statehood would be held hostage to slavery in Missouri. In February 1820 the Senate passed a bill for the admission of Maine with an amendment enabling the people of Missouri to form a state constitution. Before the bill was returned to the House, a second amendment was adopted on the motion of [[Jesse B. Thomas]] of [[Illinois]], excluding slavery from the [[Louisiana Territory]] north of the [[parallel 36°30′ north]] (the southern boundary of Missouri), except within the limits of the proposed state of Missouri. The House then approved the bill as amended by the Senate.<ref>
{{cite book|last= Greeley|first= Horace.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i3o_CwF21l4C&pg=PA28 |title= A History of the Struggle for Slavery|page= 28|publisher=Dix, Edwards & Co.|year= 1856|isbn= 978-1-4290-1637-7}}
</ref> Though Monroe remained firmly opposed to any compromise that restricted slavery anywhere, he reluctantly signed the Compromise into law (March 6, 1820) only because he believed it was the least bad alternative for southern slaveholders. The legislation passed, and became known as "the [[Missouri Compromise]]", which temporarily settled the issue of slavery in the territories.{{sfn|Hammond|2019}} Monroe's presidential leadership role in drafting the Missouri Compromise is disputed. He viewed the issue of admission conditions more from a political perspective and did not convene a cabinet meeting on this matter.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hart|2005|pp=93–94}}</ref>