The matter was hotly debated. Of the twenty-two States then constituting the Union, ten were slave States. Two ominous phrases began to be heard. One was "State rights," the other "Balance of power." In the violence of party strife, patriotism was lost sight of. The House of Representatives refused to admit Missouri without the condition; the Senate refused to do so with it. So Missouri was not admitted at this time. With the two houses thus divided, it was apparent that no new State could be admitted, since the Southern party, having control of the Senate, would not vote to admit a free State so long as Missouri was kept out, and Maine was then ready to come in as a free State. As neither party would yield, the more moderate, or timid, men of each tried to find some intermediate ground where the factions could come together, each giving up something for the sake of restoring harmony to the country. Finally a settlement was reached. Maine came in a free State. Missouri was admitted with slavery, but with the restriction attached that her southern boundary should thenceforward be the limit north of which no new slave States should be formed. Thus the line between freedom and slavery was first strictly drawn on the parallel of 36° 30´, but with a slave State above it. The first battle between the two warring systems had been fought, and slavery had won. The North had got a line, but the South had won a State. ARKANSAS ADMITTED 1836. Arkansas was admitted into the Union in 1836, as a slave State, retaining the name it had been given as a Territory, when formed from the Louisiana purchase,—a name originating with the once powerful nation Marquette found seated on the banks of the Mississippi. Thus three slave States had been made out of French Louisiana. THOMAS H. BENTON'S IDEA. "_There is the East! There lies the road to India._" Lawyer, soldier and politician, but not yet a statesman, Thomas H. Benton went from Tennessee to Missouri after the war with England was over. Though St. Louis was yet only a large village, it was the focus of the activities of the Great West. Mr. Benton saw it was the place for a rising man to grow up in, and accordingly he settled there. In St. Louis Mr. Benton found an aristocracy of fur-traders, whose attachment for their own usages and old form of government bound them together. They kept their own language and manners. With many it was a point of honor never to learn English at all. In all things they were as distinctively French as the French people of Canada are to-day. Thus this scion of refinement had been grafted on a rude frontier life, but would not assimilate with the coarser elements thrown upon it by emigration from the States.