Twenty Years of Congress Volume I Part 1

Twenty Years of Congress.

Vol. 1.

by James Gillespie Blaine.

CHAPTER I.

Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in the Const.i.tution.--Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries.

--Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.-- Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.--State of Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.-- Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission of Missouri to the Union.--The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820 and 1821.--Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.--Struggle over the Right of Pet.i.tion.

The compromises on the Slavery question, inserted in the Const.i.tution, were among the essential conditions upon which the Federal Government was organized. If the African slave-trade had not been permitted to continue for twenty years, if it had not been conceded that three-fifths of the slaves should be counted in the apportionment of representatives in Congress, if it had not been agreed that fugitives from service should be returned to their owners, the Thirteen States would not have been able in 1787 "to form a more perfect union." These adjustments in the Const.i.tution were effected after the Congress of the old Confederation had dedicated the entire North-west Territory to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of Virginia had, for the good of all, generously and patriotically surrendered her t.i.tle to the great country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, which to-day const.i.tutes five prosperous and powerful States and a not inconsiderable portion of a sixth.

This was the first territory of which the General Government had exclusive control, and the prompt prohibition of slavery therein by the Ordinance of 1787 is an important and significant fact.

The anti-slavery restriction would doubtless have been applied to the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to impose it. The founders of the government not only looked to the speedy extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the idea of a geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, and slavery established on the other. But the territory south of the Ohio belonged to the Southern States of the Union,--Kentucky to Virginia; Tennessee to North Carolina; Alabama and Mississippi to Georgia, with certain co-extensive claims put forth by South Carolina. When cessions of this Southern territory were made to the General Government, the States owning it exacted in every case a stipulation that slavery should not be prohibited. It thus came to pa.s.s that the Ohio River was the dividing-line. North of it freedom was forever decreed. South of it slavery was firmly established.

Within the limits of the Union as originally formed the slavery question had therefore been compromised, the common territory part.i.tioned, and the Republic, half slave, half free, organized and sent forth upon its mission.

The Thirteen States whose independence had been acknowledged by George III., occupied with their outlying territories a vast area, exceeding in the aggregate eight hundred thousand square miles.

Extended as was this domain, the early statesmen of the Union discovered that its boundaries were unsatisfactory,--hostile to our commercial interests in time of peace, and menacing our safety in time of war. The Mississippi River was our western limit. On its farther sh.o.r.e, from the Lake of the Woods to the Balize, we met the flag of Spain. Our southern border was the 31st parallel of lat.i.tude; and the Spanish Floridas, stretching across to the Mississippi, lay between us and the Gulf of Mexico. We acquired from Spain the right of deposit for exports and imports at New Orleans, but the citizens of the Union who lived west of the Alleganies were discontented and irritated to find a foreign power practically controlling their trade by intercepting their access to the sea. One of the great problems imposed upon the founders of the Union was to remove the burdens and embarra.s.sments which obstructed the development of the Western States, and thus to render their inhabitants as loyal by reason of material prosperity as they already were in patriotic sympathy. The opportunity for relief came from remote and foreign causes, without our own agency; but the courageous statesmans.h.i.+p which discerned and grasped the opportunity, deserved, as it has received, the commemoration of three generations. The boundaries of the Union were vastly enlarged, but the geographical change was not greater than the effect produced upon the political and social condition of the people. The ambitions developed by the acquisition of new territory led to serious conflicts of opinion between North and South,--conflicts which steadily grew in intensity until, by the convulsion of war, slavery was finally extinguished.

TERRITORIAL CESSIONS IN AMERICA.

A great European struggle, which ended twelve years before our Revolution began, had wrought important changes in the political control of North America. The Seven Years' War, identical in time with the French and Indian War in America, was closed in 1763 by numerous treaties to which every great power in Europe was in some sense a party. One of the most striking results of these treaties on this side of the Atlantic was the cession of Florida to Great Britain by Spain in exchange for the release of Cuba, which the English and colonial forces under Lord Albemarle had wrested from Spanish authority the preceding year. England held Florida for twenty years, when among the disasters brought upon her by our Revolution was its retrocession to Spain in 1783,--a result which was accounted by our forefathers a great gain to the new Republic.

Still more striking were the losses of France. Fifty years before, by the Treaty of Utrecht, France had surrendered to England the island of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick), and the Hudson-bay Territory. She now gave up Canada and Cape Breton, acknowledged the sovereignty of Great Britain in the original thirteen Colonies as extending to the Mississippi, and, by a separate treaty, surrendered Louisiana on the west side of the Mississippi, with New Orleans on the east side, to Spain. Thus, in 1763, French power disappeared from North American. The last square mile of the most valuable colonial territory ever possessed by a European sovereign was lost under the weak and effeminate rule of Louis XV., a reign not fitted for successful war, but distinguished only, as one of its historians says, for "easy-mannered joyance, and the brilliant charm of fas.h.i.+onable and philosophical society."

The country which France surrendered to Spain was of vast but indefinite extent. Added to her other North-American colonies, it gave to Spain control of more than half the continent. She continued in possession of Louisiana until the year 1800, when, during some European negotiations, Bonaparte concluded a treaty at San Ildefonso with Charles IV., by which the entire territory was retroceded to France. When the First Consul acquired Louisiana, he appeared to look forward to a career of peace,--an impression greatly strengthened by the conclusion of the treaty of Amiens the ensuing year. He added to his prestige as a ruler when he regained from Spain the American empire which the Bourbons had weakly surrendered thirty- seven years before, and he expected a large and valuable addition to the trade and resources of France from the vast colonial possession. The formal transfer of so great a territory on a distant continent was necessarily delayed; and, before the Captain- general of France reached New Orleans in 1803, the Spanish authorities, still in possession, had become so odious to the inhabitants of the western section of the Union by their suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans, that there was constant danger of an armed collision. Mr. Ross of Pennsylvania, an able and conservative statesman, moved in the Senate of the United States that the government be instructed to seize New Orleans. Gouverneur Morris, a statesman of the Revolutionary period, then a senator from New York, seconded Mr. Ross. So intense was the feeling among the people that a large army of volunteers could have been easily raised in the Mississippi valley to march against New Orleans; but the prudence of Mr. Jefferson restrained every movement that might involve us in a war with Spain, from which nothing was to be gained, and by which every thing would be risked.

THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.

Meanwhile Mr. Robert R. Livingston, our minister at Paris, was pressing the French Government for concessions touching the free navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New Orleans, and was speaking to the First Consul, as a French historian observes, in a tone which "arrested his attention, and aroused him to a sense of the new power that was growing beyond the sea." Mr.

Livingston was re-enforced by Mr. Monroe, sent out by President Jefferson as a special envoy in the spring of 1803, in order to effect some adjustment of the irritating questions which were seriously endangering the relations between France and the United States. The instructions of Mr. Madison, then secretary of State, to Mr. Monroe, show that the utmost he expected was to acquire from France the city of New Orleans and the Floridas, of which he believed France either then was, or was about to become, the actual owner.

Indeed, the treaty by which France had acquired Louisiana was but imperfectly understood; and, in the slowness and difficulty of communication, Mr. Madison could not accurately know the full extent of the cession made at San Ildefonso. But Mr. Jefferson did not wait to learn the exact provisions of that treaty. He knew instinctively that they deeply concerned the United States. He saw with clear vision that by the commercial disability upon the western section of the Union its progress would be obstructed, its already attained prosperity checked; and that possibly its population, drawn first into discontent with the existing order of things, might be seduced into new and dangerous alliances. He determined, therefore, to acquire the control of the left bank of the Mississippi to its mouth, and by the purchase of the Floridas to give to Georgia and the Mississippi territory (now const.i.tuting the States of Alabama and Mississippi) un.o.bstructed access to the Gulf.

But events beyond the ocean were working more rapidly for the interest of the United States than any influence which the government itself could exert. Before Mr. Monroe reached France in the spring of 1803, another war-cloud of portentous magnitude was hanging over Europe. The treaty of Amiens had proved only a truce. Awkwardly constructed, misconstrued and violated by both parties, it was about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown.

The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could neither conduct a war nor conclude a peace.

Fearing that, in the threatened conflict, England, by her superior naval force, would deprive him of his newly acquired colonial empire, and greatly enhance her own prestige by securing all the American possessions which France had owned prior to 1763, Bonaparte, by a dash in diplomacy as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on the field of battle, placed Louisiana beyond the reach of British power. After returning to St. Cloud from the religious services of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, he called two of his most trusted advisers, and, in a tone of vehemence and pa.s.sion, said,--

"I know the full value of Louisiana, and have been desirous of repairing the fault of the French negotiators who lost it in 1763.

A few lines of a treaty have restored it to me, and now I must expect to lose it. . . . The English wish to take possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. . . . They have already twenty s.h.i.+ps of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. . . . The English have successively taken from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. But they shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet."

The discussion went far into the night. The two ministers differed widely in the advice which they gave the First Consul; one was in favor of holding Louisiana at all hazards; the other urged its prudent cession rather than its inevitable loss by war. They both remained at St. Cloud for the night. At daybreak the minister who had advised the cession was summoned by Bonaparte to read dispatches from London, that moment received, which certainly foreshadowed war, as the English were making military and naval preparations with extraordinary rapidity. After reading the dispatches, the First Consul said,

"Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation. I know the value of what I abandon. It renounce it with the gravest regret. To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this affair with the envoy of the United States. Do not even wait the arrival of Mr. Monroe. Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston. . . . But I require a great deal of money for this war. I will be moderate. I want fifty millions for Louisiana."

The minister, who was opposed to the sale, interposed, in a subsequent interview, some observations "upon what the Germans call the _souls_, as to whether they could be the subject of a contract or sale."

Bonaparte replied with undisguised sarcasm,--

"You are giving me the ideology of the law of nature. But I require money to make war on the richest nation in the world. Send your maxims to London. I am sure they will be greatly admired there."

The First Consul afterwards added, "Perhaps it will be objected that the Americans will be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries; but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations, which are called perpetual, only last till one of the contracting parties finds it in his interest to break them."

SUCCESS OF JEFFERSON'S DIPLOMACY.

Two days after this conversation Mr. Monroe opportunely arrived, and on the 30th of April the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was formally concluded. Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston had no authority to negotiate for so vast an extent of territory; but the former was fully possessed of President Jefferson's views, and felt a.s.sured that his instructions would have been ample if the condition of France had been foreseen when he sailed from America.

Communication with Was.h.i.+ngton was impossible. Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, an answer could not be expected in less then three months. By that time British s.h.i.+ps would probably hold the mouths of the Mississippi, and the flag of St. George be waving over New Orleans. Monroe and Livingston both realized that hesitation would be fatal; and they boldly took the responsibility of purchasing a territory of unknown but prodigious extent, and of pledging the credit of the government for a sum which, rated by the ability to pay, was larger than a similar pledge to-day for five hundred millions of dollars.

The price agreed upon was eleven million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in six per cent United States bonds, the interest of which was made payable in London, Amsterdam, and Paris, and the princ.i.p.al at the treasury in Was.h.i.+ngton in sums of three millions per annum, beginning fifteen years after the bonds were issued.

In a separate treaty made the same day, the United States agreed to pay twenty million francs additional, to be applied by France to the satisfaction of certain claims owed to American citizens.

Thus the total cost of Louisiana was eighty millions of francs, or, in round numbers, fifteen millions of dollars.

No difficulty was experienced in putting the United States in possession of the territory and of its chief emporium, New Orleans.

The French Government had regarded the possession of so much consequence, that Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden, was at one time gazetted as Captain-general; and, some obstacles supervening, the eminent General Victor, afterwards Marshal of France and Duke of Belluno, was named in his stead. But all these plans were brushed aside by one stroke of Bonaparte's pen; and the United States, in consequence of favoring circ.u.mstances growing out of European complications, and the bold and competent statesmans.h.i.+p of Jefferson, obtained a territory larger in area than that which was wrested from the British crown by the Revolutionary war.

It seems scarcely credible that the acquisition of Louisiana by Jefferson was denounced with a bitterness surpa.s.sing the partisan rancor with which later generations have been familiar. No abuse was too malignant, no epithet too coa.r.s.e, no imprecation too savage, to be employed by the a.s.sailants of the great philosophic statesman who laid so broad and deep the foundations of his country's growth and grandeur. President of a feeble republic, contending for a prize which was held by the greatest military power of Europe, and whose possession was coveted by the greatest naval power of the world, Mr. Jefferson, through his chosen and trusted agents, so conducted his important negotiation that the ambition of the United States was successfully interposed between the necessities of the one and the aggressive designs of the other. Willing to side with either of these great powers, for the advantage of his own country, not underrating the dangers of war, yet ready to engage in it for the control of the great water-way to the Gulf, the President made the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, and at a cost so small that the total sum expended for the entire territory does not equal the revenue which has since been collected on its soil in a single month in time of great public peril. The country thus acquired forms to-day the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colorado north of the Arkansas, besides the Indian Territory and the Territories of Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Texas was also included in the transfer, but the Oregon country was not. The Louisiana purchase did not extend beyond the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and our t.i.tle to that large area which is included in the State of Oregon and in the Territories of Was.h.i.+ngton and Idaho rests upon a different foundation, or, rather, upon a series of claims, each of which was strong under the law of nations. We claimed it first by right of original discovery of the Columbia River by an American navigator in 1792; second, by original exploration in 1805; third, by original settlement in 1810, by the enterprising company of which John Jacob Astor was the head; and, lastly and princ.i.p.ally, by the transfer of the Spanish t.i.tle in 1819, many years after the Louisiana purchase was accomplished. It is not, however, probable that we should have been able to maintain our t.i.tle to Oregon if we had not secured the intervening country. It was certainly our purchase of Louisiana that enabled us to secure the Spanish t.i.tle to the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific, and without that t.i.tle we could hardly have maintained our claim. As against England our t.i.tle seemed to us to be perfect, but as against Spain our case was not so strong.

The purchase of Louisiana may therefore be fairly said to have carried with it and secured to us our possession of Oregon.

The acquisition of Louisiana brought incalculable wealth, power, and prestige to the Union, and must always be regarded as the master- stroke of policy which advanced the United States from a comparatively feeble nation, lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, to a continental power of a.s.sured strength and boundless promise.

The _coup d'etat_ of the First Consul was an overwhelming surprise and disappointment to the English Government. Bonaparte was right in a.s.suming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British amba.s.sador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his pa.s.sports. At Dover he met the French amba.s.sador to England, General Andreossy, who had likewise demanded his pa.s.sports. Lord Whitworth loaded General Andreossy with tokens of esteem, and conducted him to the s.h.i.+p which was to bear him back to France. According to an eminent historian, "the two amba.s.sadors parted in the presence of a great concourse of people, agitated, uneasy, sorrowful. On the eve of so important a determination, the warlike pa.s.sion subsided; and men were seized with a dread of the consequences of a desperate conflict. At this solemn moment the two nations seemed to bid each other adieu, not to meet again till after a tremendous war and the convulsion of the world."

THE DESIGNS OF ENGLAND FOILED.

England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest degree embarra.s.sing, if not disastrous, to the Union. At that time the forts of Spain, transferred to France, and thence to the United States, were on the east side of the Mississippi, hundreds of miles from its mouth. If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain, would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the United States. England would thus have had her colonies planted on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her formidable navy confronted the young republic. No colonial acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as that of Louisiana would have proved. This fact was clearly seen by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the complication of a war in America when she was about to a.s.sume so heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy and confidence. A large proportion of them were accustomed to the sea and could send swarms of privateers to prey on British commerce.

Independent citizens would be even more formidable than were the rebellious colonists in the earlier struggle with the mother country, and, acting in conjunction with France, could effectively maintain a contest. Considerations of this nature doubtless induced the Addington ministry to acquiesce quietly in a treaty whose origin and whose a.s.sured results were in every way distasteful, and even offensive, to the British Government.

The extent and boundaries of the territory thus ceded by France were ill-defined, and, in fact, unknown. The French negotiator who conferred with Monroe and Livingston, declared a large portion of the country transferred to be no better known at the time "than when Columbus landed at the Bahamas." There was no way by which accurate metes and bounds could be described. This fact disturbed the upright and conscientious Marbois, who thought that "treaties of territorial cession should contain a guaranty from the grantor."

He was especially anxious, moreover, that no ambiguous clauses should be introduced in the treaty. He communicated his troubles on this point to the First Consul, advising him that it seemed impossible to construct the treaty so as to free it from obscurity on the important matter of boundaries. Far from exhibiting any sympathy with his faithful minister's solicitude on this point, Bonaparte quietly informed him that, "if an obscurity did not already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one in the treaty." In the possibilities of the First Consul's future, the acquisition of Spanish America may have been expected, or at least dreamed of, by him; and an ill-defined, uncertain boundary for Louisiana might possibly, in a few years, be turned greatly to his advantage.

EXPANSION OF OUR BOUNDARIES.

There was certainly obscurity enough in the transfer to satisfy the fullest desire of Bonaparte. France ceded Louisiana to the United States "with all its rights and appurtenances," as acquired by the retrocession from Spain under the treaty of San Ildefonso, Oct. 1, 1800; and by that treaty Spain had "transferred it to France with the same extent it then had in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France previously possessed it, and such as it should be with the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States." This was simply giving to us what Spain had given to France, and that was only what France had before given to Spain, --complicated with such treaties as Spain might have made during the thirty-seven years of her owners.h.i.+p. It was evident, therefore, from the very hour of the acquisition, that we should have abundant trouble with our only remaining neighbors in North America, Spain and Great Britain, in adjusting the boundaries of the vast country which we had so successfully acquired from France.

Fortunately for the United States, the patriotic and far-seeing administration of Mr. Jefferson was as energetic in confirming as it had been in acquiring our t.i.tle to the invaluable domain. As soon as the treaty was received the President called an extra session of Congress, which a.s.sembled on the 17th of October, 1803.

Before the month had expired the treaty was confirmed, and the President was authorized to take possession of the territory of Louisiana, and to maintain therein the authority of the United States. This was not a mere paper warrant for exhibiting a nominal supremacy by floating our flag, but it gave to the President the full power to employ the army and navy of the United States and the militia of the several States to the number of eighty thousand.

It was a wise and energetic measure for the defense of our newly acquired territory, which in the disturbed condition of Europe, with all the Great Powers arming from Gibraltar to the Baltic, might at any moment be invaded or imperiled. The conflict of arms did not occur until nine years after; and it is a curious and not unimportant fact, that the most notable defeat of the British troops in the second war of Independence, as the struggle of 1812 has been well named, occurred on the soil of the territory for whose protection the original precaution had been taken by Jefferson.

With all these preparations for defense, Mr. Jefferson did not wait to have our t.i.tle to Louisiana questioned or limited. He set to work at once to proclaim it throughout the length and breadth of the territory which had been ceded, and to the treaty of cession he gave the most liberal construction. According to the President, Louisiana stretched as far to the northward as the Lake of the Woods; towards the west as far as the Rio Grande in the lower part, and, in the upper part, to the main chain of mountains dividing the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic. To establish our sovereignty to the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific became a matter of instant solicitude with the watchful and patriotic President. In the previous session he had obtained from Congress an appropriation of two millions of dollars "for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." In the confidential message which so promptly secured the money, the President suggested that the object to be accomplished was a better understanding with the Indian tribes, and the fitting out of an exploring and scientific expedition across the continent, though our own domain at the time was terminated on the west by the Mississippi. It was believed, that, between the lines of the message, Congress could read that our negotiations with France and Spain touching the free navigation of the Mississippi might soon reach a crisis. Hence the prompt appropriation of a sum of money which for the national treasury of that day was very large.

LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION.

The two men selected to conduct the expedition across the continent, Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, were especially fitted for their arduous task. Both were officers in the army, holding the rank of captain. Lewis had been private secretary to the President, and Clarke was brother to the heroic George Rogers Clarke, whose services were of peculiar value in the Revolutionary struggle.

Before they could complete the preparations for their long and dangerous journey, the territory to be traversed had been transferred to the United States, and the expedition at once a.s.sumed a significance and importance little dreamed of when Jefferson first conceived it. The original design had been a favorite one with Mr. Jefferson for many years. When he resided at Paris as our minister, before the Federal Government was organized, he encouraged a similar expedition, to be fitted out in Kamtchatka, to sail to our western coast, and thence to come eastward across the continent. This design was to be executed by the somewhat noted John Ledyard, a roving and adventurous man from Connecticut, who had accompanied Captain Cook on his famous voyage to the Pacific, and whom Jefferson afterwards met in Paris. The necessary authority was obtained from the Russian Government; but, after Ledyard had reached the borders of Kamtchatka, he was suddenly recalled, driven with speed day and night in a closed carriage, on a return journey of several thousand miles, and set down in Poland, penniless, and utterly broken in health. This strange action was the offspring of jealousy on the part of the Empress Catharine, who feared that the energy of the young and vigorous government of the United States would absorb the north-west coast of America, upon which the Russian Government had already set its ambition.

The success of the Lewis and Clarke expedition aided greatly in sustaining our t.i.tle to the Oregon country. The joint leaders of it became celebrated by their arduous achievement, and were rewarded accordingly. Lewis was appointed governor of Louisiana territory in 1807, and held the position until his death in 1809; while Clarke was for a long period governor of the territory of Missouri, serving in that capacity when the State was admitted to the Union. But while the Lewis and Clarke expedition largely increased our knowledge of the country, and added to the strength of our t.i.tle, it did not definitely settle any disputed question. With Spain we had constant trouble in regard to the boundaries of Louisiana, both on the west in the direction of Texas, and on the east along the confines of Florida. She had always been dissatisfied with Bonaparte's transfer of Louisiana to the United States. If that result could have been foreseen, the treaty of San Ildefonso would never have been made.

The government of the United States believed that Louisiana, as held by France, had bordered on the Rio Grande, and that, by the treaty with Bonaparte, we were ent.i.tled to territory in the direction of Florida as far as the Perdido. In the vexatious war with the Seminoles, General Jackson did not hesitate to march across the line, capture Pensacola, and seize the Barancas. The comments, official and personal, which were made on that rash exploit, led to controversies and estrangements which affected political parties for many years after. Jackson's hostility to John Quincy Adams, his exasperating quarrel with Clay, his implacable hatred for Calhoun, all had their origin in events connected with the Florida campaign of 1818.

To compose the boundary troubles with Spain, a treaty was negotiated in 1819, which, with many gains, entailed some signal losses upon the United States. The whole of Florida was ceded by Spain, an acquisition which proved of great value to us in every point of view. As Florida had become separated from the other Spanish colonies by the cession of Louisiana, the government at Madrid found difficulty in satisfactorily administering its affairs and guarding its safety. South of the United States, to the Straits of Magellan, the Spanish flag floated over every foot of the continent except the Empire of Brazil and some small colonies in Guiana. The cession of Louisiana to Bonaparte involved the loss of Florida which was now formally transferred to the United States.

But Spain received more than an equivalent. The whole of Texas was fairly included in the Louisiana purchase,--if the well-studied opinion of such eminent statesmen as Clay, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, and Benton may be accepted,--and we paid dearly for Florida by agreeing to retreat from the Rio Grande to the Sabine as our south-western frontier, thus surrendering Texas to Mexico. The western boundary of the Louisiana territory was defined as beginning at the mouth of the Sabine (which is the boundary of the State of Louisiana to-day), continuing along its western bank to the 32 of north lat.i.tude, thence by a line due north to the Red River, thence up the Red River to the 100th meridian west from Greenwich, or the 23d west from Was.h.i.+ngton, thence due north to the Arkansas, thence following the Arkansas to its source in lat.i.tude 42, and thence by that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Should the Arkansas fall short of the 42, a due north line to that parallel was to be taken.

The United States solemnly renounced all claim to territories west or south of the line just mentioned, and Spain renounced all claim to territory east or north of it. Thus all boundary disputes with Spain were ended, and peace was secured, though at a great cost; as events in after years so fully proved.

LOUISIANA ADMITTED AS A STATE.