Heather Cox Richardson teaches us, "March 15 is a crucially important day in U.S. history ... the day in 1820 that Maine, the Pine Tree State, joined the Union. Maine statehood had national repercussions." Credit: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-14-2026 I encourage you to read her Letter from an American today, but I'll paraphrase: Maine statehood was crucial because the leaders it fostered moved west and worked to abolish slavery. People in northern Massachusetts first asked for a separate state in 1819, but southerns wouldn't permit a new "free" state, one that did not permit enslavement, without a new slave state to preserve the South's power in the Senate. The "Missouri Compromise" was crafted to allow Maine statehood only if Missouri were admitted as a slave state. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the Missouri 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." Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, but Jefferson, of course, was proved right. The new Mainers' anger over their statehood being held hostage by Southern slave owners became part of the state's culture. And when the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Maine men carried that anger west. Among them was Elihu Washburne, one of seven brothers, all who moved west except the eldest, Israel Washburn Jr. By 1854, both Elihu and Israel were U.S. Congressmen when the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise and permitted the spread of slavery to the West. Furious, Israel called a meeting of 30 congressmen from many political parties who shared the conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. And it did: the Republicans. The new party flipped Maine from Democratic to Republican in 1856. In 1859, Abraham Lincoln articulated an ideology for the party: ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs of slavery. Lincoln knew Maine was key when he ran for president in 1860. "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." Lincoln picked Maine Senator Hannibal Hamlin as his running mate, took all eight of Maine's electors, and won the election. When Lincoln arrived in Washington to take office, Elihu Washburne met him at the railroad station. The Maine men and Lincoln worked to abolish slavery, but the United States still suffers with racial inequities. We can look to this history as an example of how brave, individual action can improve our union. Again, read Richardson's letter, as it covers other brave Mainers and the details of the relationships that made them effective leaders. Photo by Mathew Benjamin Brady and Levin Corbin Handy, Public Domain per Wikipedia https://w.wiki/JrGP This ride felt good, but by the end I was really dragging! Not to hot: The hottest I saw on my Wahoo was 84°. I rode thru parts of Spring Lake Park that I hadn't visited before. I've climbed before up to the Hood Mountain Park parking lot and the Sugarloaf Park campground. They're not too steep, and very beautiful. The last climb was hard, after all the big climbing in the first half of the route.