The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-06
HOW THE UNITED STATES
 HAVE EXPANDED.
(By Dana c. Munro, A. M., Univer- sity of Pennsylvania and William Farley, Ph. U.)
CHAPTER ".

They had no authority to close such a transaction. Their instructions had been 70 bargain for the island of New Or ,eans. and they had been authorized to offer as high at $le.0Uo.00O for the de- sired concession. The price finally agreed upon was s15,000,000. Of this sum three fourths were t obe paid to France in the form of per cent. bonds and the remainder was to be paid by the United States to It's own citizens who had claims against France. The French claims" so called, have never yet been fully settled by the govern ment. Many a family in New England is still hoping to obtain a fortune from this source.
 Thus the two executive of France and of the United States, went as far as they could in the bargain. The difficulties in the way of the final rati- fcation will be discussed later, hut first let us note what the American envoys had secured. Their purchase, both in its political and its economic aspects, was the most important trans action ever concluded by the United States. The general boundaries of the district have been already indicated. It is only when we enumerate the States which have been erected out of this su- 
 ness and the value of the acquisition which was thus cheaply made. It in- cluded what are now Minnesota. Iowa. Missouri. Arkansas. Louisiana. the Da- kotas. Nebraska, Kansas, the greater part of Montana and Wyoming, about half of Colorado. and all of the Indian Territory and Oklahoma. Vastly bet ter than they knew the fathers bui'ded when they peacefully secured all this. Jeffersons main idea had been to gain control. or, at least, freedom of trade upon the Mississippi. Indeed, :n urg- ing upon the French the propriety of selling he had beIittled everything cx- cept the value of the gateway of trade. The land he had declared to be sandy waste. Of the fertile prairies, of the mineral wealth he had no idea. Time alone was to develop that. A study of area is instructive. The union of the 13 original States with about 500,- 900 square miles of territory, had been just about doubled in extent by the peace of 17s3, which extended their boundary to the Mississippi. The Louisiana purchase, adding. in round numbers. another 100000 of square miles. once more doubled the National area.
 Question of Boundary.
 A precise boundary upon all sides was impossible in those days when the great West was so little known. But even in the very district which had been desired by Jefferson, and which was most thickly populated, there was room for grave dispute. The territory eastward from the Isle of Orleans. as far as the Perdido River, had been sometimes French and sometimes tzL T& l. lry@ hak +, Spain ceded Louisiana to France she included Texas. but did not include West Florida. But the exact limits were unknown to the American nego- tiators and the crooked policy of Ma poleon left these undetermined. Liv- ingston insisted and honestly believed that West Florida had been bought. Spain stoutly resisted the claim. How Florida, East and West, was obtained, the next paper will tell.
 Spain did more than resist the claim to any part of Florida. She denied the validity of the whole transaction, and pointed to Napoleon's express agree ment never to alienate Louisiana. But Jefferson and his administration paid no heed to Spain. They took title from France and left Spain to settle her own dispute with Napoleon.
 
 great President. for questions of the gravest constitutional importance arose at once. Jefferson was a strict con- structionist." and held that the Feder- al government must be guided wholly by the Constitution, exercising only powers delegated by that instrument. or such as were logically necessary to carry out those provisions. But he felt and rightly, that this purchase could not be justified on principles of strict construction. The power to make treaties. lodged in the President and Senate. might. indeed. have allowed him to acquire the new territory. but there was one provision in the treaty cession which at once became the sub ject of acrimonious party discussion. The provision attached reads: The in habitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States. and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoy ment of all the rights. advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States. and in the meantime, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they profess"
 Factious Assault on Treaty.
 It Is to be noted in passing that a similar provision was made in all later treaties of cession up to the time wben Alaska was annexed, but not then TOT since. The Federalists made factious assaults upon the treaty as a whole, ridiculing the new territory, Satiri2ing the mountain of sat- which Presi- dent Jefferson had asserted was to be found somewhere in the inner country, and drawing startling pictures of what the price paid meant-how many wagL- ons $15, ,000. 900 would load. and how far they would stretch, and how the sym would make a pile of silver dollars 3 miles high But the sound common sense of the country approved the treaty in its plain outlines. Jefferson had been at first anxious 10 have a amendment sanctioning the purchase but his own party ad- visers persuaded him that the temper of the country was Sufflci ent ground for his action. The agreement to incor- porate the new territory lrto States was, however, most bitterly fought. The New England Federai!sts feared the increase in the number of slave holding States. The general course of the Federal argument took the form of a dilemma upon which the Republic ans were to be impaled. If the treaty making power authorized the President and Senate without consent of the States or Congress. to erect new States then the old Union was at an end. or else the new territory must be held as a colonial possession, thus making the Federal government an imperial one