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local and national politics. When John McLean and Daniel 
Pope Cook made the race for Congress in Illinois in 1819 the 
slavery question played a part, and tended in a way to realign 
the factional groups. The Ohio legislature instructed the 
Congressmen of the state to exert their best efforts against 
the introduction of slavery into any of the Territories or new 
states.^ But in the final vote in the House which inserted the 
Senate line of 36°-30' and passed the bill, none of the 
representatives of the Northwest voted against it.^ The at- 
titude of the Northwest at this time foreshadowed the future 
drift from its connection with the Old South to a closer agree- 
ment with the East. It was left for economic ties to con- 
solidate the connection at a later period. With the settlement 
of the Missouri problem the slavery issue as an influence on 
political parties was replaced for many years by economic 
questions. 
The presidential election of 1820 received very little atten- 
tion in the Northwest. ‘‘There appears no great excitement 
in any quarter, concerning the next presidential election. . . . 
In most of the states the elections occur with great quietness, 
too great, perhaps, for the general safety of the Republic.” 
After the election, the editor of the Ohio Monitor, then state 
printer, merely published this notice: “We have received 
from authority the following list of electors of President and 
Vice-President chosen by the people of the state.”® The 
Indiana legislature selected the electors while the voters of the 
state knew nothing of what was being done.^ The Governor 
of Illinois divided the state into three electoral districts, and 
one Edwards man and two of the opposition were elected. 
The congressional delegation for the 3 states in 1820 con- 
sisted of 8 representatives and 6 senators, all Jeffer- 
^ Ohio, Senate Journal, 1820, p. 169. 
^Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., I Sess., II, 1587. In the vote in the Senate on the 
Thomas amendment only Noble and Taylor of Indiana voted nay, and with 8 southerners 
constituted the minority of 10 to 34. Ibid., I, 428. On the passage of the whole 
bill to engrossment and third reading, Thomas and Edwards of Illinois voted for, while 
Noble, Taylor, and the two Ohio senators, Ruggles and Trimble, voted against it. 
On the adoption of the compromise: “Much to our grief and some to our astonish- 
ment, Missouri has been admitted into the Union with permission to hold slaves . . . 
It is more our desire, than our hope, that the period will never come, when this nation 
will have to take up her lamentation, and say of this foul deed, “Let the day be darkness, 
let no light shine upon it’, in which the United States Senate forced the passage of 
this impious act,” Ohio Monitor, Columbus, March 21, 1820. 
“November 18, 1820. The vote was: Monroe, 7,164; Adams, 2,215. Ohio Statistics, 
1914. Report of Secretary of State (Springfield, Ohio, 1915), 254. 
■'Oliver H. Smith, Early Trials and Sketches (Cincinnati, 1858), 85. 
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