At this time seven states had been admitted to the union. Missouri Territory was growing faster than any of these states. One writer who came to Missouri wrote "The new comers are like a mountain torrent, pouring into the country faster than it is possible to furnish them bread stuff It seems like Kentucky and Tennessee are breaking up and moving to the territory."
Certain members of congress, for personal reasons, gave little consideration to the solemn and binding obligations and delayed the admission to statehood for about four years. Some congressmen wanted to eliminate slavery, some wanted revenge against certain Indians, and some would insure that, as citizens, the Indians could not return to claim their lands.
There were many citizens who felt they were being degraded by the split of the union on questions that should be settled within the states affected. The delay of congress to accept the territory as a state without imposing upon it conditions not prescribed in the constitution gave rise to sentiment for the formation of an independent republic to come into the union at a later date.
A faction that wanted Missouri free state helped in forming a petition to congress to include the unattached strip with the county of Wayne to form a state larger than the state of Massachusetts that could enter the union as a slave state and allow Missouri to enter as a free state. The state was to be called the state of Wayne.