In what came to be known as the Missouri Compromise, the Senate and House of Representatives worked out a deal that allowed Massachusetts' northernmost counties to apply for admission to the Union as a nonslave state called Maine while Missouri would be admitted as a slave state.

With the admission of Missouri and Maine to the Union, the number of slave states and nonslave states remained equal at 12 each, which prevented the South from having more representation in the Senate (which has two senators from each state), than the North. In addition, slavery would be forbidden north of the latitude line that runs along the southern Missouri border for the remaining Louisiana Territory. Monroe signed Congress's bill reflecting the Compromise on March 6, 1820.

Do you know what the New Englanders thought of this?