COMPROMISE, ART AND BREACH OF THE PEACE

On the 17^th February 1819 the United States House of Representatives passed the Missouri Compromise for the first time. It is here that the seeds of the American civil war were firmly planted.

The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. Prior to the agreement, the House of Representatives had refused to accept this compromise, and a conference committee was appointed.

A bill to enable the people of the Missouri Territory to draft a constitution and form a government preliminary to admission into the Union came before the House of Representatives in Committee of the Whole, on 13^th February, 1819. An amendment offered by James Tallmadge of New York (which was named the Tallmadge Amendment), which provided that the further introduction of slaves into Missouri should be forbidden, and that all children of slave parents born in the state after its admission should be free at the age of 25, was adopted by the committee and incorporated in the bill as finally passed on 17^th February, 1819, by the house. The United States Senate refused to concur in the amendment, and the whole measure was lost.

In a 21^st April letter to John Holmes, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the division of the country created by the Compromise would eventually lead to the destruction of the Union:

“...but 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. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper”

For an animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789–1861, including the Missouri Compromise go to:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/US_Slave_Free_1789-1861.gif

One year ago I mentioned the opening on the 17th February of the Armory Show in 1913 in New York. It might be worth a look:
 http://fbuffnstuff.blogspot.com/2011/02/arms-armories-and-art.html

Here is a little item of flying history related to the Nixon White House in the middle of the Watergate scandal.

At 2 A.M. on 17^th February, 1974, Robert K. Preston, a United States Army private first class, stole a United States Army UH-1 Iroquois helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland, flew it to Washington, D.C., and hovered for six minutes over the White House before descending on the south lawn, about 100 yards from the West Wing.  There was no initial attempt from the Executive Protective Service to shoot the helicopter down, and he later took off and was chased by two Maryland State Police helicopters. Preston forced one of the police helicopters down through his manoeuvring of the helicopter, and then returned to the White House. This time, as he hovered above the south grounds, the Executive Protective Service fired at him with shotguns and submachine guns. Preston was injured slightly, and landed his helicopter.

 UH-1 Iroquois helicopter

In a plea bargain, he pled guilty to "wrongful appropriation and breach of the peace," and was sentenced to 1 year in prison and fined $2,400. This amounted to a six-month sentence, since he had already been in prison for six months at the time.

Preston was a 20-year-old private first class in the U.S. Army, stationed in Panama City, Florida. Although he was training to become a helicopter pilot, he abandoned the training due to "deficiency in the instrument phase". Preston had enrolled in the JROTC program at Rutherford High School in Panama City, Florida and had long-time aspirations to a military career. After being taken into custody Preston indicated he was upset over not being allowed to continue training to be a helicopter pilot, and staged the incident to show his skill as a pilot.

At the time of the incident, President Richard Nixon was travelling in Florida.