Memorial and Resolutions of the Legislature of the Missouri Territory,: and a Copy of the Census of the Fall of 1817: Amounting to 19,218 Males. December 8, 1819. Referred to a Select Committee [cover title]

Washington, [D.C.]: Printed by Gales & Seaton, 1819. First edition. 6, [2 blanks] pp. Untrimmed, top edge uncut; light foxing and dusting The first petition for Missouri statehood adopted by the Missouri territorial legislature and presented to the House by Missouri delegate John Scott. It lit the fuse of sectional conflict between the North and South over the westward expansion of slavery that would only temporarily cool with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, smoldering until its ultimate eruption in the Civil War. The memorial argues for statehood on the grounds that the Missouri Territory, with some 100,000 inhabitants, was too large for effective political administration. The proposed boundaries, about 30% larger than what was ultimately adopted, include the 36'30" boundary that would establish the line between future free and slave states in the Missouri Compromise of 1820.The Memorial is signed in type by David Barton, Speaker of the Missouri House, Benjamin Emmons, President of the Legislative Council, Thomas F. Riddick, President of the Legislative Council, pro tem, and John Scott, Missouri's Delegate to Congress. An important piece in the history of American slavery and abolition, uncommon in trade (the Weinstein copy was offered at $2,500 in 1996). "While the two subsequent Missouri compromises forestalled the portentous threat of disunion, congressional polemics affected the first general outpouring of both pro- and anti-slavery sectionalism outside designated government halls and chambers, further solidified Northern sentiment, and, said historian George B. Dangerfield, 'summoned the South into being'" (Weinstein).REFERENCE: S&S 49864; Weinstein, Against the Tide, 45