In 1819 occurred the exciting controversy known as the “Missouri Compromise,” which settled one phase of the slavery question, and paved the way for its final solution. When Missouri applied for admission as a State, the House of Representatives voted to make that admission conditional on the prohibition of the further introduction of slaves, and the emancipation of all slave children born after the admission, as soon as they reached the age of twenty-five. The Senate, however, rejected this condition, and Congress adjourned without coming to any final decision. All during the next session the question was fought, until in the night between the 2d and 3d of March, 1820, the State was admitted on a compromise. Slavery was permitted in its territory, but forever interdicted in the territory, except Missouri, lying north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes north latitude. If the latter had affected Missouri alone it would have been comparatively insignificant, but there were two great principles involved which bore upon the welfare of the entire nation. These were the questions of slavery and of State sovereignty as opposed to United States supremacy. The result of the Compromise was that the country was divided upon a fixed geographical basis into free and slave sections. Each of the two groups consolidated more and more, and the antagonism between the North and South inevitably increased. In 1835 an event took place which was destined ultimately to be of great interest to the United States. This was the revolution in Texas, then a province of Central America. A Declaration of Independence was made on the 2d of March, 1836; on March 6th the famous massacre of the Alamo occurred, and two weeks later the battle of San Jacinto, in which the Mexican forces were beaten, and the President, Santa Anna, taken prisoner. As a condition to his release the Mexican troops left the country, and hostilities ceased. The independence of Texas was soon acknowledged by the United States and Europe, and in 1845, at its own request, the new republic became a State of the American Union. Mexico, which had never acknowledged the independence of Texas, resented the action of the United States, and the following year collisions took place between the two countries on the Rio Grande. Two very deadly conflicts, one at Palo Alto and the other at Resaca de la Palma, could only result in a declaration of war on the part of our government. The army, under General Taylor, proceeded at once to Palo Alto, where the Mexicans were defeated on the 8th of May. In September Taylor took Monterey. Another army under General Kearney had succeeded in occupying New Mexico, and after establishing a civil government, marched on to California to the assistance of Commodore Stockton and Captain Fremont. The war ended with victory for the Americans in September of the next year. It had been an unbroken series of successes for the United States.