\nA few weeks ago. when I discussed in some detail the Constitutional Convention of 1819, that perfected the document under which Congress established the new State of Maine in 1820, I purposely omitted for this later broadcast today, two matters that were the greatest barriers in the way of Maine statehood. Let me now tell you about them.<\/p>\n
The first had been a constant barrier all through the years since the original attempt to get free from Massachusetts was promulgated by the Falmouth Gazette in 1795. It was the Coasting Law. In 1789, only two years after the passage of the U.S. Constitution, Congress had passed that law. It decreed that every coasting vessel — that is, a vessel trading between any two ports on the Atlantic coast of the U.S. — must enter and clear some custom house port in every state that it passed, except those that physically adjoined the state of departure Thus, if a ship left New York with a cargo entirely for Savannah, Georgia, and with no need to stop en route, it was by the law obliged to put in at ports in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia. and North and South Carolina, causing costly delays as well as substantial customs fees.<\/p>\n
Now, as long as Maine was a part of Massachusetts. a ship could carry a cargo from Portland to New York without a customs stop in between. No stop had to be made in New Hampshire, as a contiguous state, and since Maine was a part of Massachusetts, no stops need be made in Rhode Island or Connecticut, both of which adjoined Massachusetts. But if Maine should become a separate state, New Hampshire would be the only state by-passed on a voyage to New York, and a Maine ship would have to make call and clearance in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. There seemed to be no hope of getting Maine shippers and coastal residents to vote for separation until something was done about the Coasting Law and in the early years of the 19th century most Maine people lived along the coast.<\/p>\n
Proponents of separation did, however, concoct one ingenious scheme, which happily came to naught. To get around the difficulty set up by the Coasting Law, it was proposed that York, Cumberland and Lincoln Counties form a separate state, while the rest of Maine, then consisting entirely of the two counties of Hancock and Washington, remain in Massachusetts. Then, since the new state would have a part of Massachusetts on its eastern boundary, one of its ships could still make the passage to New York without an intervening customs call. Also a ship from Blue Hill, Castine or Machias could do the same thing, for its departure would still be from a part of Massachusetts. That proposal was seriously made in 1794 and was endorsed by all except three members of the convention that met in Portland in that year. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed. and shortly afterward the scheme that would have divided Maine was dropped.<\/p>\n
The Portland Argus, organ of the Jeffersonian Democrats in Maine, made light of the Coasting Law, when another attempt at separation was made in 1816. The paper said: “It is well known that we have never carried on the coastal trade without entering and clearing on nearly every trip, except to New Hampshire or Rhode Island. Because of the scandalous and unprincipled survey of Maine lumber when it reaches Boston, our lumber trade has gone steadily farther south, and our ship owners find no difficulty in entering and clearing intervening ports.”<\/p>\n
The Argus’ cheering words fell on deaf ears. Maine shippers knew from bitter experience that such customs clearance was at worst an imposition, and at best a nuisance. When the votes for and against separation were cast in the Maine towns in 1816, the attempt at separation failed. Overwhelming against it were the majorities in such towns as York, Wells, Arundel, Freeport, Brunswick, Wiscasset, Newcastle, Boothbay and Bristol. In fact opinion about separation in 1816 was sharply divided along geographical lines, the coastal region being strongly opposed, the inland strongly in favor. But, as I have said, there were more people along the coast.<\/p>\n
The best the 1816 Maine convention could do was to instruct its president, William King, to petition Congress for a change in the Coasting Law. When a bill to make a change was presented in Congress, it met vigorous opposition from one of the Maine Representatives, Prentiss Mellere of Portland. Many Congressmen took the position that, if the Maine delegation couldn’t agree on the issue, it had better be left alone.<\/p>\n
A prominent man in Washington at that time was William King’s brother Rufus. Rufus took his Maine brother to see William Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, under whose jurisdiction came enforcement of the Coasting Law. Crawford was ambitious to succeed James Monroe as President, and he saw this appeal of the King brothers as a chance to build up strength for his campaign in Maine. So he agreed to support a bill to lighten the Coasting Law, although he well knew it would lay him open to the charge of sacrificing receipts to the Treasury that the Coasting Law insured.<\/p>\n
William King wisely decided not to petition the Massachusetts Legislature for separation at its January session in 1819, but to wait until Congress could act on the Coasting Law; then, if Congressional action should be favorable, present a separation petition to the May session of the Legislature.<\/p>\n
On March 8, 1819 the national House of Representatives did pass a new Coasting Law that abolished the division of the coast into state boundaries. The whole Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines were divided into two districts, one from Eastport to the boundary between Florida and Alabama, the other from that boundary to the boundary of Louisiana and Texas. Thus the new law put the entire Atlantic seaboard into one district, so that a vessel might go from Portland to Florida without a single stop. The jubilant Argus said: “The admission of Maine as a separate state will now in no way affect our coasting trade. ”<\/p>\n
Secretary Crawford wrote William King that the new law was going to prove more costly to the Treasury than he had anticipated, but he was still convinced that in the end the public interest would be best served by the change. Crawford’s support may have been founded on his own political self-interest, but it was not successful. John Quincy Adams, not William Crawford became the next President.<\/p>\n
After March in 1819 opponents of separation could no longer invoke the Coasting Law. Anti-separation strength was now reduced to the hard core Maine Federalists who wanted the continued protection of Federalist Massachusetts. They feared that separation would relegate them to a permanent minority. How weak they had become was revealed when the Maine towns voted overwhelmingly for separation and Congress granted it in 1820.<\/p>\n
I said there were two strong barriers in the way of making Maine a separate state. The other was the rising issue of slavery. When the Maine bill, including the 1819 Constitution, was presented to Congress in January, 1820, William King and his supporters, as well as the Maine delegation in Congress, thought all was clear sailing. In a few weeks victory would be won. At the same time a bill had been presented to grant statehood to Missouri, and it was confidently expected that both bills would be considered separately on their merits.<\/p>\n
In the previous year the first bill for Missouri statehood had been introduced. To it Rep. Tallmadge of New York had offered an amendment to prohibit further introduction of slaves into Missouri, and to free all children of slaves already there at the age of 25. Because the amendment was certain of defeat in the Senate, where equality of representation favored the South, it seemed to make little difference whatever action the House took. Nevertheless the amendment passed. Only six northern representatives, including John Holmes of Maine, voted against it. The Senate turned it down soundly, and passed the Missouri bill without any restriction on slavery. That created a deadlock between the two houses. Then, when the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, took the stand that Maine should not be admitted into the Union without Missouri, Maine statehood was indeed in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
Among the Massachusetts representatives in that Congress were seven men from Maine: John Holmes from Alfred, Mark Hill from Phippsburg, Ezekiel Whitman from Portland, Martin Kinsley from Hampden, Enoch Lincoln from Paris, Joshua Cushman from Winslow and James Parlin from Gardiner. All except Whitman and Cushman had enthusiastically supported separation. It seems strange that Joshua Cushman, who had been Winslow’s and Waterville’s first resident minister, should take the side of the coastal towns, but he was a dyed-in-the-wool Federalist, and he wanted no separation from Boston. However, both Cushman and Whitman had been won over by the change in the Coasting Law, so all seven Congressmen from Massachusetts’ District of Maine were united in striving to get Congressional approval for their new state.<\/p>\n
The action of Speaker Henry Clay had now tied Maine irrevocably to the case of Missouri. The issue must be decided, it appeared, on other grounds than merit for the Maine case. To further complicate matters, Clay had also announced that he would not accept any plan to restrict slavery in Missouri. He insisted on uniting the Maine and Missouri bills. What was the reason for Clay’s action? He was profoundly a peace maker on the slavery issue, willing to seek every reasonable compromise to keep that issue from rending the Union apart. He was not opposed to the admission of Maine as a free state. But at that time the existing 22 states were evenly divided, 11 slave and 11 free. Clay saw hope of peace only if that equal division was preserved. So, he insisted, let Maine come in as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.<\/p>\n
Then there was presented in the Senate, the Thomas amendment, which history knows as the Missouri Compromise. It provided that slavery should be forever forbidden in the territory west of the Mississippi north of 36\u00b0 30′, excepting Missouri. It looked as if the way were now open for the admission of both Maine and Missouri. But the House of Representatives balked, refusing to pass the Senate bill. Then the House agreed to conference with the Senate. John Holmes was made chairman of the House Committee of Conference. On March 2 he reported to the House that the conference with the Senate had resulted in three agreed points: (1) The Senate agreed not to insist on uniting the Maine and Missouri bills; (2) The House agreed to strike out its clause restricting slavery in Missouri; and (3) Both Houses accepted the Thomas amendment prohibiting slavery hereafter north of 36\u00b0 30′.<\/p>\n
The vote in the House was still very close. By a margin of only three votes, 90 to 87, it voted to accept the conference report. The compromise easily passed the Senate. As a result on March 15, 1820 Maine became the nation’s 23rd state.<\/p>\n
Year: 1970<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #873, Broadcast on December 27, 1970<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}