While praising Jackson's character, Tyler condemned him as overzealous for the execution of two British subjects. Tyler was elected for a full term without opposition in early 1819.The major issue of the Sixteenth Congress (1819–21) was whether Missouri should be admitted to the Union, and whether slavery would be permitted in the new state. Acknowledging the ills of slavery, he hoped that by letting it expand, there would be fewer slaves in the east as slave and master journeyed west, making it feasible to consider abolishing the institution in Virginia. Thus, slavery would be abolished through the action of individual states as the practice became rare, as had been done in some Northern states. At the term's start in December, he found the chamber in debate over the impending presidential election of 1824.