In America, public feeling was no less excited. The occasion for this was the first serious clash of the Northern and Southern factions of the United States over what was known as the Missouri Compromise. On February 18, the Missouri Compromise bill passed the Senate, and on March 2 the House. It admitted Missouri as a slave State, and prohibited slavery north of parallel 36 deg. 30', the southern line of Missouri. Henry Clay declared that it settled the slavery question "forever." The bill went to the President. There was still another compromise, and that was in the Cabinet. The President asked advice on two points. The first point was whether Congress had a Constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a Territory. The Cabinet agreed that the right existed. Then the question arose whether the section prohibiting slavery "forever" referred only to the territorial condition, or whether it also applied when the Territory became a State. The Cabinet, with the exception of Adams, agreed that "forever" applied only to the territorial condition; Adams held that "forever" meant literally forever, in State as well as in Territory. In order to escape this dilemma it was proposed that the question of "forever," as relating to States, should be avoided; and that the only question should be, whether the section prohibiting slavery in the Territories forever was Constitutional. The order of proceeding was reversed; Mr. Adams was to reply in the affirmative without giving his reasons, while the others were to explain in writing that the provision was Constitutional; but "forever" meant only while the territorial condition existed. With this understanding the bill was signed. It is plain now that in the unsettled point the whole pith and meaning of the Missouri Compromise was contained, as the country learned fully and decisively thirty-five years afterward. [Sidenote: Monroe elected President] New issues then came to the front--protection, internal improvements, and recognition of the South American republics. Presently, in order to preserve the balance of power between slavery and freedom, it was enacted that Maine was to be admitted on March 15, making twelve free and twelve slave holding States. A bill was passed pronouncing the maritime slave trade piracy. On October 20, Spain ratified the treaty ceding Florida. Congress reassembled in November. James Monroe and John Quincy Adams were the opposing candidates for the Presidency. Monroe received 231 electoral votes; Adams received one from a New Hampshire elector who voted in sympathy with a popular sentiment that Washington should stand alone in the high honor of a unanimous choice. [Sidenote: Quinine]