week two on "Aurelia's Journey"

Top to bottom, left to right:  Crossways, Devil's Claw, and two Criss-Cross blocks.
These first blocks are nine inch blocks.

Piecing blocks is a good time to reflect... to reflect on the history of our United States...

If you don't want a history lesson,

then skip the remainder of this post.

It's short and maybe not exactly concise,

but how my mind worked through the history book...

and the "A Path to the Civil War"

by Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820: 
Missouri Territory sought statehood in the early 1800's...

at the time, there were 22 states in the Union, 11 of them were slave-holding. 
Missouri, the territory, had slaves. 
A New York representative proposed to allow Missouri statehood IF they banned slavery within the new state.
The proposal passed the House, but not the Senate...
so the bid to statehood stalled.

It stalled until Maine wanted to be admitted to the Union as a free state. 
If both slave-holding Missouri Territory and free-state Maine were admitted at the same time, this would maintain "balance" in the equal numbers of states that were slave and free states.
Thus, Missouri became the 24th state in the Union in August, 1821.

The language of the Missouri Compromise Bill 

prohibited slavery 

north of the 36*30' Latitude line

and it remained so for 30 years.