the name of his ship this gave the united states a claim to what was called the country � being another name for the river the province of which was purchased from france in included the territory drained by the captains and were sent by president in to ascend the and cross the rocky mountains to the these brave after the greatest dangers and hardships spent a winter on the and returned to st louis in after an absence of two years and four months from the of civilized people our claim to the country rests on the by captain gray and that by and when the war began we were engaged in a dispute with england regarding our right to this territory this dispute was settled in s by a treaty which gave the united states all south of latitude after the admission of in no new states were taken into the union for fifteen years was admitted as a slave state in and was balanced the close of the war by which came in as a free state in the follow admission ot ing year two states in the extreme south were admit ted in � which we had acquired from spain x as we have seen and which had been a part of � l x and and then an independent republic but in was admitted and in the extreme northern state of in admitted the first state on the pacific coast which was then like a new world to americans chapter the question of slavery in politics the of opened a new chapter in the american history it involved us in a dispute which motion a chain produced the war that brought a large end the c tion to our territory it became necessary to settle the � question of slavery in the territory and this opened the slavery agitation anew both of the old parties were after a while split asunder by the debate and the question of slavery or no slavery in the became the leading issue in our politics in sixteen years from the of this chain of causes had plunged the country into the most tremendous civil war in the history of the world in just twenty years the war had ended in the entire of in the united states thus the of brought about results which changed the history of the continent history of the united states anti slavery agitation opposed the election and death ot president to the after the of the compromise in it had been an accepted in our politics that the slavery discussion should not be william garrison and a few others who insisted on the of slavery were frowned upon as they were severely persecuted even by northern people who feared that their agitation of the subject might destroy the union but when the arrangement made by the compromise was once disturbed by and other territory the political struggle between the free and slave states began anew in during the war a bill was introduced in looking to a peace with to be made by a purchase of territory mr of moved to add a that slavery should never exist in the territory thus acquired this was known as the the was finally rejected but it opened the question of freedom or slavery in the new region before the war was ended and the agitation thus introduced once more into politics did not cease while slavery existed the first effect of the excitement was to render certain the defeat of the party in the election of a large number of and a smaller number of from the old parties and formed the free soil party which desired to shut slavery out of the the general the general the hero of vista for president the free ex president martin van was elected the question of slavery in general was the twelfth president of the united states and of these first twelve seven were born in virginia which got the name o the mother of from that act was born in virginia in but he was carried to in his infancy he got a commission in the army when he was twenty four years old he gained his first distinction by his gallant of fort in the war against s indians in a war against the indians of t� in he defeated the savages in a severe battle at his fame rests chiefly on his achievements in the war after serving for a year and four months president died and was succeeded by of new york the vice president but while the country was excited over the ow id election an event took place in the newly territory of that gave fresh violence to the slavery debate of gold were discovered in the river in the mines proved to be the richest in the world in a great rush of people to the new territory set in ships loaded with passengers sailed around cape horn to seek their fortunes in a land of gold long trains of in ox carts their way across the almost unknown region between the river and the o of the united states pacific slope a region at that time occupied by bands of warlike indians in the people of set up a state government without authority from and asked to be immediately admitted to the union as part of the new state was south of the compromise line and as its constitution forbade slavery the slave states were opposed to this addition to the number of free states meantime the growing sentiment at the north made it harder to slaves who escaped in large number to the free states the southern states complained of this as a of the constitution which provided that all such should be sent back at the same time many people in the northern states complained that the public traffic in slaves in the city of washington was highly 