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Josiah Quincy (1772-1864), a native of Boston, served as a Federalist congressman from 1805-1813. He opposed statehood for Louisiana, a position that he made very clear in his speech before Congress in January 1811. Essentially, Quincy argued that the bill for admission was unconstitutional, and that Louisiana would be the first of many new slave-holding areas to be admitted to the Union. Though he would not have agreed, he acknowledges on this page that some supporters of statehood proclaimed New Orleans as "the most important point in the union," an auspicious position for the capital of the soon-to-be eighteenth state.      [Mr. Quincy's Speech, on the Bill Admitting the Territory of Orleans, into the Union (1811)]

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