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3 Early Statehood On July 19, 1820, Missouri’s constitutional convention approved a document that allowed slavery and prohibited immigration of free blacks to the state. The ban on free blacks was another barrier to admission, because the Constitution of the United States guaranteed that a citizen’s rights in one state could not be withheld in another state. Clay, anxious to save his compromise, secured the promise of the Missouri legislature that it would never enforce that clau…

…ature moved to St. Charles, and in 1826, when a statehouse was completed, it moved to Jefferson City. In its early years, Jefferson City was a village of mud streets, tents, and log houses, where coonskin-capped legislators carried on lively debates on internal improvements and on the relative merits of hard and soft money. In spite of the capital city’s natural importance, it was St. Louis that became the commercial center of the state.