At the same time the Missouri bill was introduced, another bill was presented for establishing Arkansas territory out of that part of the Missouri territory south of 36° 30´, and a clause was inserted into it granting freedom to all afterborn children of slaves, at the age of twenty-five, but a clause prohibiting the further introduction of slaves was defeated by a vote of 70 to 71 and the clause for freeing the children of those already in the territory was stricken out. Taylor of New York then proposed to add a proviso to the bill that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist in any of the territories of the United States north of 36° 30´, but his motion was defeated and the bill for organizing Arkansas Territory passed both houses without any restriction. Before the meeting of the next Congress, Massachusetts authorized the formation of the District of Maine into a state and a Constitution was adopted by the people in that district for that purpose. In the meantime there was much agitation in the North upon the subject of excluding slavery from the territory west of the Mississippi. Upon the meeting of the 16th Congress, a bill was introduced to authorize the people of Missouri to frame a State Constitution, but on motion of Taylor, the author of the proposed proviso excluding slavery from the territories north of 36° 30´, a committee was appointed to consider the subject of prohibiting slavery west of the Mississippi, and the Missouri bill was postponed to await the action of the committee. A bill had been introduced for the admission of Maine--and after the defeat of a motion to postpone it until the Missouri bill came up--was passed. When this bill came up in the Senate, a clause for the admission of Missouri, was attached to it, after the defeat of a motion to insert in the latter a proviso for the prohibition of slavery, and Thomas, a senator from Illinois, then proposed an amendment prohibiting the introduction of slavery into any of the remaining territory north of 36° 30´, which was adopted by a vote of 34 to 10; the senators from Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and one senator from North Carolina and Mississippi each voting in the negative. The bill was then passed by a vote of 24 to 20, all the senators from the slave states and the two from Illinois voting in the affirmative, and those voting in the negative being from the free states.