During the following session (1819-1820), the House passed a similar bill with an amendment, created on January 26, 1820 by John W. Taylor of New York, allowing Missouri into the union as a slave state. In December, the question had been complicated by the admission in of Alabama, a slave state, making the number of slave and free states the same. Also, there was a bill in passage through the House (January 3, 1820) to admit Maine as a free state.