With the admission of Alabama as a slave state in 1819, the U.S. was equally divided, with 11 slave states and 11 free states. Later that year, Congressman James Tallmadge Jr. of New York initiated an uproar in the South when he proposed two amendments to a bill admitting Missouri to the Union as a free state. The first would have barred slaves from being moved to Missouri, and the second would have freed at age 25 all Missouri slaves born after admission to the Union. The admission of the new state of Missouri as a slave state would give the slave states a majority in the Senate, while passage of the Tallmadge Amendment would give the free states a majority.