Maine is physically separate from the rest…

Maine is physically separate from the rest of Massachusetts.

Long-standing disagreements over land speculation and settlements had led to Maine residents and their allies in Massachusetts proper forcing an 1807 vote in the Massachusetts Assembly on permitting Maine to secede; the vote failed.

Secessionist sentiment in Maine was stoked during the War of 1812 when Massachusetts pro-British merchants opposed the war and refused to defend Maine from British invaders.

Massachusetts had agreed in the previous year to permit secession, sanctioned by voters of the rapidly growing region.

Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state on March 15, 1820.

The original state capital is Portland, Maine's largest city; it will be moved in 1832 to the more central Augusta.