The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-22
CHAPTER ".
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.


authority to close such transaction
Their instructions had been to bargain
for the island of New Orleans and they
had been authorized to offer as high as
$1O,600,G00 for the desired concession. The
price finally agreed upon was $15, 100000.
OF this sum three-fourths was to be
paid to France in the form of per cent
bonds, 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 Deen
fully settled by the government. Many
family in New Zealand is still hoping
to obtain a fortune from this source.
Thus the two executives, of France and
of the United States, went as far as they
could in the bargain. The difficulties in
the way of the final ratification will be
discussed later, but first let us note
what the American ENJOYS had secured.
Their purchase, both in it's political and
its economic aspects, was the most I'M
portant transaction ever concluded by
the United States. The general boundar-
; les of the district have been already indi-
Gated. 1t is only when we enumerate
the states which have been erected out
of this superb domain that We realize
the vastness and the value of the aequi-
sition which was thus cheaply made. 1t
included what is now Minnesota, Iowa,
Miss ouri, 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 better
than they knew the fathers builded when
they peacefully secured all this. Jefrer-
sons main idea had been to gain control
or, at least, freedom of trade upon the
Mississippi Indeed, in urging upon the
French the propriety of selling he nao
hol QLyp, All ~
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 areas is instructive.
The union of the thirteen original states,
with about 100000 square miles of terri
tory, had been just about doubled in ex-
tent by the peace of 1888, which EXTEND
ed their boundary to the Mississippi.
The Louisiana purchase adding, in roun1
numbers, another 100000 of square
miles, once more doubled the national
area.
A precise boundary upon all sides was
impossible in those days when the great
West was so little known. But even n
the very district which had been so de-
sired 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 Spanish. 1t is
now known that when Spain ceded LouI-
siana to France she included Texas, but
did not include West Florida. But the
exact limits were unknown to the Amer
lean negotiations, and the crooked policy
of Napoleon left these undetern xned
Livingston 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 agreement
never to ALLEVIATE Louisiana. But Jeffer-
son and his administration paid no heed
to Spain. They took the title from
France and left Spain to settle her own
dispute with Napoleon.
Eifficplties at home confronted the
great president. For questions of the
gravest constitutional Importance arose
at once. Jefferson was "strict con-
structionist'' and held that the federal
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 right
iy, that this purchase could Lot be justi-
fed 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 treaty of
ceSSion which at once became the subject
of acrimonious party discussion. The
provision attacked reads: THE inhab-
itants of the coded territory shall be ir-
corporated in the union of the United
States and admitted as soon as possible,
according to the principles of the federal
constitution, to the enjoyment 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 ard the religion which
they profess" 1t is to be noted in pass
ing that a similar provision was made
in all later treaties of ceSSion up to the
time when Alaska was annexed, but not
then nor since The federalists made
facetious assaults upon the treaty as u
whole, ridiculing the new territory, satir
izing the mountain of salt which Pres |
ident Jefferson had asserted was to be
found somewhere in the inner country,
and drawing startling pictures of what |
the price paid meant-how many wagons |
SIS, GOO would load and how far they |
would stretch and how the sum would
make a pile of silver dollars three miles
high But the sound, common sense of
the country approved the treaty in its
main outlines. Jefferson had been at
first anxious to have constitutional
amendment sanctioning the purchase, but
his own party advisers persuaded him
that the temper of the country was suffi-
cient ground for his action. The agree |
ment to incorporate the new territory
into states was, however, most bitterly
fought The New England federalists
feared the increase in the number of
states. The general course |
of the federalisf argument took the form
of a dilemxna, upon which the Repub-
leans were to be impaled. If the treaty
making power authorized the president
and senate, without consent of the states
or of congress, to erect new states, then
the old union was an an end, or else the |
new territory must be held as colonial !
possession, thus making the federal gov
ernment an imperial one; in either case
the old Republican theories of the pow
ers of the national government were shat |
tered. Jefferson and the administration
party. led by John Randolph, accepted
the issue, and with a grand inconsistency |
fought out the question on its merits. |
The phrase, manifest destiny does not |
appear to have been used, but destiny
took the helm. and. regardless of party
battle cries, forced the country on into |
the only obvious and sane course of ac-
ton.
Another provision of the treaty gave to
the ships of France and Spain certain |
very valuable trading privileges for a |
term of twelve years. This was also at |
tackled as discrimination against Amer |
lean commerce, but was defended as |
proper part of the price paid for Louisi-
ana and hence within the treaty-making |
power. The debate in the house, before |
which the matter could come only indi- |
rectly-through motion to call for the
papers in the case-was determined in IA |
vor of the administration by a vote OF so |
to Is. The senate ratified the treaty by a |
"a A.