In March, the citizens of Missouri had asked permission to form a State constitution and to be admitted into the Union. It was tacitly understood that slavery might be carried into territory east of the Mississippi belonging originally to the existing slave States. But Louisiana, west of the Mississippi, belonged to the whole of the United States rather than to any one of the several States. The question now arose whether Congress should establish slavery anew in territory of the United States. The alternative was presented to the people of the North whether to submit to the demands of the South or to consent to a dissolution of the Union. Though represented by a majority in Congress, the Northern States were defeated after a long struggle. John Quincy Adams doubted if Congress, under the American Constitution, had the right to prohibit slavery in a territory where it already existed. "If a dissolution of the Union should result from the slave question," he wrote, "it is obvious that it must shortly afterward be followed by a universal emancipation of the slaves." [Sidenote: American Pension system inaugurated] [Sidenote: Oregon in dispute] During this same year Congress first granted pensions to needy veterans of the Revolutionary War and soon afterward to the widows and children of dead soldiers. Thus began the system of American pension legislation for former American soldiers which was destined to grow to such gigantic proportions in later years. Up to that time the number of stripes in the American flag had been eighteen. Now a bill was approved reducing the number of stripes to thirteen, the number of original States comprising the Union. The number of stars was to be made equal to that of the States. Soon afterward, the new flag, with twenty stars in its quartering, was first raised over the halls of Congress. Shortly after this the Fifteenth Congress adjourned. On October 20, a convention with Great Britain was signed respecting fisheries and boundaries, giving to Americans the right to fish in Newfoundland waters and renewing the agreement of 1815, making the 49th parallel the boundary between the United States and British North America. The convention also provided for the joint occupation of Oregon for ten years longer. The glossy finish to leather known as "patent" leather was first patented in this year. Another notable invention of the time was the process of engraving on soft steel. [Sidenote: Illinois a State] The second session of the American Congress was not called until late in the year. Illinois was then admitted as the twenty-first State of the Union. 1819 [Sidenote: Florida ceded by Spain] [Sidenote: Southern Indians dispossessed] [Sidenote: Alabama a state]