by large majorities this year, a constitution was framed by a convention which met at Portland in October, this was ratified by town meetings in December, and Maine applied for admission into the Union. Owing to the peculiar situation at the time in Congress, arising from the contest over the admission of Missouri, the question of the admission of Maine became an important one in national politics. By an Act of the 3rd of March 1820, however, Maine was finally admitted into the Union as a separate state, her admission being a part of the Missouri compromise (q.v.).
The boundary on the north had not yet been ascertained, and it had long been a subject of dispute between the United States and Great Britain. The treaty of 1783 (Article II.) had defined the north-east boundary of the United States as extending along the middle of the river St Croix “from its mouth in the bay of Fundy to its source” and “due north from the source of St Croix river to the highlands; along the said highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude.” Great Britain claimed that the due north line was 40 m. long and ran to Mars Hill in Aroostook county, and that the highlands ran thence westerly 115 m. to the source of the Chaudière; the United States, on the other hand, claimed that the northerly line was 140 m. long, running to highlands dividing the Ristigouche and the tributaries of the Metis; and there was a further disagreement with regard to the side of the highlands on which the boundary should be, and as to what stream was the “north-westernmost head of Connecticut river.” The fifth article of the Jay treaty of 1794 provided for a commission to decide what the St Croix river actually was, and this commission in 1798 defined the St Croix, saying that its mouth was in Passamaquoddy bay and that the boundary ran up this river and the Cheputnatecook to a marked monument. The treaty of Ghent in 1814 (Article IV.) referred the question of the ownership of the islands in Passamaquoddy bay to a commission which gave Moose, Dudley and Frederick islands to the United States; and the same treaty by Article V. provided for the survey (which was made in 1817–1818) of a part of the disputed territory, and for a general commission. The general commissioners met at St Andrews, N.B., in 1816, and in New York City in 1822, only to disagree; and when the king of the Netherlands, chosen as arbitrator in 1829 (under the Convention of 1827) rendered in 1831 a decision against which the state of Maine protested, the Federal Senate withheld its assent to his decision. In 1838–1839 the territory in dispute between New Brunswick and Maine became the scene of a border “war,” known as the “Aroostook disturbance”; Maine erected forts along the line she claimed, Congress authorized the president to resist any attempt of Great Britain to enforce exclusive jurisdiction over the disputed territory, and an armed conflict seemed imminent. General Winfield Scott was sent to take command on the Maine frontier, and on the 21st of March 1839 he arranged a truce and a joint occupancy of the territory in dispute until a satisfactory settlement should be reached by the United States and Great Britain. The Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842 was a compromise, which allowed Maine about 5500 sq. m. less than she had claimed and allowed Great Britain about as much less than her claim; all grants of land previously made by either party within the limits of the territory which by this treaty fell within the dominions of the other party were to be “held valid, ratified and confirmed to the persons in possession under such grants, to the same extent as if such territory had . . . fallen within the dominions of the party by whom such grants were made”; and the government of the United States agreed to pay to Maine and Massachusetts[1] “in equal moieties” the sum of $300,000 as compensation for the lands which they had claimed and which under the treaty they were called upon to surrender. The long controversy, which is known in American history as “The North-East boundary dispute,” was not finally settled however until 1910.
It was the Democratic majority in the district of Maine that effected the separation from Massachusetts, and from the date of that separation until 1853 Maine was classed as a Democratic state, although it elected a Whig governor in 1838 and in 1840, and cast its electoral vote for John Quincy Adams in 1824 and 1828 and for W. H. Harrison in 1840. As a result of the slavery question, there was a party disintegration between 1850 and 1855, followed by the supremacy of the Republican party from 1856 to 1878. In 1878, of the 126,169 votes cast in the election for governor, Selden Connor (b. 1839), re-nominated by the Republicans, received 56,554; Joseph L. Smith (“National” or “Greenback”), 41,371; Alonzo Garcelon (1813–1906) (Democratic), 28,218; as no candidate received a majority of the votes, the election was left to the legislature.[2] The vote of the House eliminated Connor, and Garcelon was chosen in the Senate by a Democratic-National fusion. Again there was no election by popular vote in 1879, and Garcelon and his council, to secure the election of a fusion government, counted-in a fusion majority in the legislature by evident falsification of the returns. On the 3rd of January 1880 the Supreme Court declared the governor and council in error in counting in a fusion majority, but on the 7th the governor swore in a legislature with 78 fusion and only two Republican members, and, the governor’s term having expired, the president of the Senate, James D. Lamson, became governor, ex-officio. On the 12th the legislative chambers were seized by the Republicans, whose organized legislature was declared legal by the Supreme Court, and who chose as governor Daniel Franklin Davis (1843–1897); whereupon, on the 17th, Joshua L. Chamberlain, to whom the peaceful solution of the difficulty had largely been due, retired from the task assigned him by Garcelon on the 5th of January “to protect the public property and institutions of the state” until Garcelon’s successor should be duly qualified. In 1880 the Democrats and Greenbacks united and elected their candidate, but after 1883 Maine was strongly Republican until 1910.
The governors of the state have been as follows:—
| William King | Democrat | 1820 |
| William Durkee Williamson (acting) | ” | 1821 |
| Benjamin Ames (acting) | ” | 1821 |
| Albion Keith Parris | ” | 1822 |
| Enoch Lincoln | ” | 1827 |
| Nathan Cutler (acting) | ” | 1829 |
| Jonathan G. Hunton | ” | 1830 |
| Samuel Emerson Smith | ” | 1831 |
| Robert Pinckney Dunlap | ” | 1834 |
| Edward Kent | Whig | 1838 |
| John Fairfield | Democrat | 1839 |
| Edward Kent | Whig | 1841 |
| John Fairfield | Democrat | 1842 |
| Edward Kavanagh (acting) | ” | 1843 |
| Hugh J. Anderson | ” | 1844 |
| John Winchester Dana | ” | 1847 |
| John Hubbard | ” | 1850 |
| William George Crosby | Whig and Free Soil | 1853 |
| Anson Peaslee Morrill | Republican | 1855 |
| Samuel Wells | Democrat | 1856 |
| Hannibal Hamlin | Republican | 1857 |
| Joseph H. Williams (acting) | ” | 1857 |
| Lot Myrick Morrill | ” | 1858 |
| Israel Washburn | ” | 1861 |
| Abner Coburn | ” | 1863 |
- ↑ An article in the Act relating to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts stipulated that the lands within the District of Maine which prior to the separation had belonged to Massachusetts should after the separation belong one-half to Maine and one-half to Massachusetts. In 1826 the wild lands of Maine were surveyed and divided between the two states; and in 1853 Maine acquired from Massachusetts, for $362,500, all of this land still remaining in possession of the latter state.
- ↑ According to Art. V. of the constitution a majority of the total number of votes cast was required for election; in case no candidate should receive a majority, it was prescribed that the “House of Representatives shall, by ballot, from the persons having the four highest numbers of votes on the lists, if so many there be, elect two persons and make returns of their names to the Senate, of whom the Senate shall, by ballot, elect one, who shall be declared the governor.” An amendment, which became a part of the constitution on the 9th of November 1880, provided that a plurality of the total number of votes cast should be sufficient for election.
