Alabama means "here we rest."
In 1820 Maine also was admitted as a state. Maine, however, was
not newly settled country. Since colonial days it had been a part
of Massachusetts. But having become dissatisfied, it separated from
Massachusetts, and asked to be admitted to the Union as a separate
state.
It was just about the same time that Missouri was also asking to
be admitted as a state. And strangely enough the admission of these
two states became connected with each other. We must look back a
little to see how.
You remember that two hundred years before this, slaves were first
brought to Virginia. In those days no one thought that slavery
was wrong. So as colony was added to colony they also became slave
owners. But gradually many people began to think that slavery was
a great evil, and every now and again one colony or another would
try to put it down. But these attempts always ended in failure.
In the northern states, however, there were few slaves. For in
these northern states there was not much that slaves could do which
could not be done just as well by white men. So it did not pay to
keep slaves, and gradually slavery was done away with.
But in the South it was different. There it was so hot that white
men could not do the work in the rice and cotton fields. And
the planters believed that without Negro slave labour it would be
impossible to make their plantations pay.
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