no vote upon the point at this juncture. The bill for the admission of Maine was passed on January 3rd, 1820, without any connection with the Missouri bill, and without any restrictions or limitations upon the powers of the new Commonwealth beyond what the Constitution of the United States placed upon those of the original Commonwealths. Mr. Clay's suggestion was not, however, lost upon the Senate, as will be seen later. {78} [Sidenote: The failure of Mr. Taylor's plan for preventing slavery extension.] Meanwhile Mr. Taylor's committee had not been able to come to any agreement. On December 28th, 1819, before the final passage of the Maine bill, Mr. Taylor stated to the House that the committee had instructed him to ask for its discharge. The House agreed to his request, and he immediately moved that a new committee be appointed, and "instructed to report a bill" prohibiting the further admission of slaves into the Territories of the United States west of the Mississippi River. This motion evidently appeared to the House to be a prejudgment of the whole question, since it postponed the consideration of it indefinitely. [Sidenote: The Missouri bill again before the House of Representatives.] The Missouri bill was, however, also allowed to rest until January 24th, 1820, and when, upon that day, the Speaker announced the bill as the first order, Mr. Taylor moved for another week's delay, and the motion was lost by only a single vote. On the next day the House, in committee of the Whole, proceeded to consider the bill. On the 26th, Mr. Storrs, of New York, undertook to connect the prohibition of slavery in the region north of the thirty-eighth parallel of latitude and west of the Mississippi River and the proposed Missouri boundary with the grant of the permission to form a Commonwealth in Missouri. The opponents of slavery extension did not, however, regard this as sufficient compensation for their support of the bill, and Mr. Storrs' motion was lost. [Sidenote: Mr. Taylor's amendment to the bill.]