With Lyon in Missouri

secession of the Southern States, slavery had been a bone of contention. At the adoption of the Constitution there was but one of the original thirteen States that did not hold slaves. The Northern States gradually abolished it, but it fastened itself on the Southern States with a grip of iron. The Fathers of the Republic were in hope that slavery would gradually die out; and toward this end, when the great Northwest Territory was organized, out of which, afterwards, there were five States created, there was a proviso that it should be forever dedicated to freedom. Missouri was admitted into the Union in 1820, and it wished to come in as a Slave State. It extended so far North that this was bitterly opposed by the free States, and the nation became greatly excited. This was the beginning of the struggle between freedom and slavery. At last a compromise was effected. It was agreed that Missouri might come in as a slave State, but that thereafter no slave States should be admitted north of the parallel 36 degrees, 30 minutes. This line is what is known in history as the Mason and Dixon Line. In 1850, California was admitted into the Union as a free State. The southern portion of it lies south of the Mason and Dixon Line, and as it was admitted as a free State, the friends of slavery claimed that the Compromise had been broken, and therefore should no longer be held as a law of the land. To conciliate the South, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. This ...