Guest
Essayist: Jeffrey Hollingsworth
[Part of
Constituting America’s 90 Day Study of State & Local Government]
The
Maine Event: The Crisis and Its Outcome
The young United
States was expanding, and by 1819 had grown to 21 states from the original 13
with more territories lining up to get in thanks to the Louisiana Purchase. But
this raised serious political problems. The thorny slavery issue darkened much
of American political discourse and policy in the early post-independence
years. A precarious balance of power in Congress between slave-holding and free
states prevailed until December 1819, when pro-slavery Alabama was admitted to
the Union as the 22nd state.
Missouri, carved from
the Louisiana Purchase, came knocking next seeking statehood but its
application ignited an enormous constitutional crisis which quickly involved
Maine. In November 1818, the Missouri territorial legislature passed
legislation requesting statehood and transmitted it to the U.S. Congress in
December. What should have been a no-brainer for admission became bogged down
in controversy over the precarious balance between slave and free states. Missouri intended to permit
slavery, which prompted free-state legislators to attach “killer” amendments to
the Missouri statehood bill that stalled it. Chaos and uproar ensued in Washington.
Along came Maine, where separation sentiment
was growing. Many previous efforts to permit Maine to break away died in the
Massachusetts General Court (legislature). But the times were catching up.
Seeking to eliminate its Revolutionary War debt to the U.S. government,
Massachusetts found easy money by selling off vast swaths of public land in
Maine and by granting generous acreages to war veterans. Thousands of pioneer
families left the crowded Bay State and trekked to the Maine wilderness seeking
elbow room and new opportunities. In less than 30 years, the population more
than tripled, from 91,000 in 1791 to 300,000 by 1820.
As Maine grew, so did discontent with its
political and economic dependence on Massachusetts. Prosperous coastal
merchants, eager to govern themselves, were the first to complain. But with
continued population growth outside the old coastal towns, frustration spread
to fishermen and inland farmers and woodsmen, who had little in common with the
governing gentry. By 1800, they were spearheading the quest for statehood,
citing a long list of economic and political grievances. The War of 1812 was
the final nail in the coffin, even for the merchant class.
At last, in the summer of 1819, Mainers voted
so overwhelmingly–nearly ¾ of the electorate– for statehood that Massachusetts
could no longer turn a blind eye. The legislature reluctantly adopted a
statehood bill for Maine in late 1819, but with one proviso: if statehood was
not approved by Congress and signed by the President by March 4, 1820, Maine
would remain tethered to Massachusetts.
The Maine statehood bill came up in Congress
in December of 1819, mere weeks after Missouri’s bid. Maine’s application
offered the possibility of a compromise. To maintain the free-state/slave-state
balance, Congressional leaders pushed the two requests for statehood as a
package — one new slave and one new free state. Maine suddenly found itself in
the midst of a firestorm of controversy.
Abolitionists all over
the Union erupted. They were firmly opposed to the admission of any new slave states. Pro-slavery interests were
equally as upset. Many Mainers, most of them ardent abolitionists, were torn.
To prevent the spread of slavery, they found themselves calling for the defeat
of the very bill that would have granted them long-sought statehood. The most
distinguished Maine native in the country was Rufus King. Born and raised in
Scarborough, scion of a wealthy family, he had a noteworthy political career. A
Signer of the U.S. Constitution, he was twice the Federalist Party candidate
for President and was a U.S. Senator from New York at the time of the
Maine-Missouri imbroglio. With a heavy heart, he opposed the Maine statehood
measure because, as he correctly foresaw, the “compromise” didn’t settle the
slavery issue, but merely postponed a final day of reckoning. Meanwhile, his
half-brother, William King, principal author of Maine’s constitution, was
elected Maine’s first Governor.
At the last minute,
the bill for Maine statehood passed Congress; on March 3, 1820, and signed into
law, taking effect on March 15. Maine became our 23rd
state. Missouri joined the Union as a slave state in 1821. The so-called
Missouri Compromise had severely tested several key articles and amendments in
the U.S. Constitution during tense, angry debates. In a long letter on April
22, 1820, to his friend and political associate John Holmes, who became one of
Maine’s first two U.S. Senators, the aging Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“…
this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me
with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed
indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”
Like the venerable Rufus King, Jefferson
perceived that the Missouri Compromise represented “a reprieve only, not a
final sentence.” That “final sentence” would come through all-out war 40
years later.
Maine’s
Constitution
The Maine Constitution is the fourth-oldest
operating state constitution in the country. The 210 delegates to the statehood
convention in October 1819 unanimously adopted the proposed state constitution,
which is modeled closely on the U.S. Constitution. Notable contents:
·
Article I contains 24
sections, the longest of which (Section 3) painstakingly spells out provisions
regarding religious liberty.
·
Thomas Jefferson
authored Sections 1 and 2 of Article VIII addressing education.
·
Article I, Section 6-A
is one of the earliest official codifications in the U.S. of non-discrimination
against all persons without exception.
·
Article I, Section 16
is among the most explicit defenses of the right to keep and bear arms ever
written: “Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall
never be questioned.”
·
Article II, Section 1
specifically grants Native Americans “residing on tribal reservations and
otherwise qualified” the right to vote in all elections.
In 2015, controversy
erupted when a Maliseet Tribe delegate to the Maine Legislature sought to
overturn a 19th Century ban on printing the
text of Article X, Section 5, which defines the state’s obligations to Native
American tribes via carryover provisions from Massachusetts.
The Constitution of Maine is updated as
necessary by the Revisor of Statutes upon ratification of amendments by the
voters of the state. The Constitution of Maine is subject to recodification
every 10 years by its own terms (Article X, Section 6). The last recodification
was in 2013.
Additional
Maine History
·
Printed flat maps show
Maine as extremely high north. In truth, seven U.S. states extend farther north
in whole or part than Maine. True globes confirm that Maine is much more easterly
than northerly. Portland is the closest key seaport to Europe by a factor of
hundreds of miles, as is Bangor International Airport (a former B-52 bomber
base) for air traffic. The easternmost point in the U.S. is, oddly enough, West Quoddy Head in Lubec, Maine.
·
The legendary
political axiom “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” stems from the fact that
Maine once held its general elections in September rather than November, on the
sensible reasoning that snow could be flying by then. In September 1840, Maine
elected a Whig Party governor. That November, Whig candidate William Henry
Harrison was elected President. That launched the saying of Maine as a
political bellwether, which held true roughly 70% of the time up through the
late 1920s. Maine amended its constitution in 1957 to conform to the rest of
the country and held elections in November effective in 1960.
·
The baseball term
signifying the batting order–“At bat, on deck, and in the hole”—originated in
Belfast, Maine, in 1872. It was confirmed personally by Paul Dickson, author of
the authoritative, widely cited Dickson Baseball Dictionary,
based on his original research in Belfast in 1987. A 1938 Sporting News feature published recollections of an
aged member of the Belfast Pastimes, who played a traveling Boston pro team on
August 7, 1872, in Belfast. Team scorekeepers back then would shout the batting
order each inning. Boston’s man simply bellowed the names. But the Belfast man
announced “Smith at bat, Jones on deck (or ‘on the deck’), and Doe in the
hold,” reflecting Belfast’s maritime roots, the hold being the below-deck
storage area on a commercial vessel. The Bostonians took a fancy to the
designation and popularized it. Over time, “hold” slurred into “hole.”
The original score sheet from that game is on display at the Belfast Historical Society Museum.
·
Why is Maine often
referred to as “Down East?” It’s a nautical term. In warm weather, prevailing
winds in New England and Maritime Canada come out of the southwest, meaning
ships headed there sailed downwind. Conversely, when en route to Boston, New
York, or other lower locales, sailors dealt with upwinds. To this day, many
Mainers speak of going “up to Boston.” The area known as Down East is most
commonly the territory east of the Penobscot River and sometimes includes
Canada’s Maritime provinces.
·
In mid-coast Maine,
the town of Searsport, never home to more than 2,500 residents, once boasted 17
shipyards and in the 1870s was home to fully one-tenth of all American merchant
sea captains.
·
The first international
telephone call took place July 1, 1881, between St. Stephen, New Brunswick,
Canada, and Calais, Maine, USA. For generations, Calais and St. Stephen have
enjoyed close relations. One example stems from the War of 1812, when the
British military supplied St. Stephen with a large supply of gunpowder for
protection against the Yankee enemy in Calais. Instead, St. Stephen’s leaders
donated much of it to Calais so it could enjoy a proper boom-and-bang
Independence Day celebration.
Jeffrey
Hollingsworth grew up in Belfast, Maine, and is a University of Maine alumnus.
He is a past president of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C., and
principal founder of its charitable foundation. He is the author of Magnificent
Mainers (Covered Bridge Press), a compendium of mini-biographies of
100 famous Maine natives. His articles have appeared
in Honolulu and Down East magazines and in the Las
Vegas Review-Journal, Portland Press Herald, and other periodicals.
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