able, even before a war should be imminent, was a chance which we thought it our duty to try; but the immediate prospect of rupture brought the case to immediate decision. The dénoument has been happy; and I confess I look to this duplication of area for the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue. Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.... JEFFERSON TO MADISON. July 14, 04. The enclosed reclamations of Girod & Chote against the claims of Bapstropp to a monopoly of the Indian commerce supposed to be under the protection of the 3d article of the Louisiana Convention, as well as some other claims to abusive grants, will probably force us to meet that question. The article has been worded with remarkable caution on the part of our negociators. It is that the inhabitants shall be admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of our Constn., to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens, and, in the mean time, en attendant, shall be maintained in their liberty, property & religion. That is that they shall continue under the protection of the treaty, until the principles of our constitution can be extended to them, when the protection of the treaty is to cease, and that of our own principles to take its place. But as this could not be done at once, it has been provided to be as soon as our rules will admit. Accordingly Congress has begun by extending about 20. particular laws by their titles, to Louisiana. Among these is the act concerning intercourse with the Indians, which establishes a system of commerce with them admitting no monopoly. That class of rights therefore are now taken from under the treaty & placed under the principles of our laws. I imagine it will be necessary to express an opinion to Gov. Claiborne on this subject, after you shall have made up Affectte salutations. one. JEFFERSON TO MADISON. MONTICELLO, Aug. 7, 204. In order however to lessen the causes of appeal to the Convention, I sincerely wish that Congress at the next session may give to the Orleans territory a legislature to be chosen by the people, as this will be advancing them quite as fast as the rules of our government will admit; and the evils which may arise from the irregularities which such a legislature may run into, will not be so serious as leaving them the pretext of calling in a foreign umpire between them & us. . . . FROM JEFFERSON'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADdress. March 4, 1805. been disap I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has proved by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view, is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children, than by strangers of another family? With which shall we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly intercourse? . . . The purchase of the Louisiana territory in 1803 constituted the first great chapter in the history of our national expansion. This purchase doubled the area of the United States, adding over 900,000 square miles. It comprised almost the entire region between the Missis sippi River and the Rocky Mountains, north of Texas, the territory out of which have since been formed the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota, with a great part of the States of Minnesota and Colorado, and also the Indian Territory, including Oklahoma. "The original domain of the Republic was equal to 102 States as large as Massachusetts. This addition was equal to 147, or 45 more than the original." By a secret convention in 1762, confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France had given this vast territory to Spain; and the control which Spain thus had of the mouth of the Mississippi became, as years went on, a matter of more and more serious concern to our Western people, for whom the Mississippi and its tributaries were the great avenues of travel and of trade Our sagacious statesmen saw early what serious consequences might be involved in the situation. Franklin said to Jay in 1784: "I would rather agree with the Spaniards to buy at a great price the whole of their right on the Mississippi than sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street door." Jefferson devoted his earnest thought to the subject years before 1803. As Secretary of State in 1790, when there seemed to be some danger of Great Britain seizing New Orleans, he expressed to Washington his opinion that, rather than see Louisiana and Florida added to the British Empire, we should take part in the general war which then seemed impending; and at the same time he warned the French to let the territory alone. See also his vigorous letter to Carmichael, our represen tative at the court of Madrid, in August, 1790. Jefferson's thought was constantly upon our fortunes at the mouth of the Mississippi; and he succeeded in negotiating the treaty which for the dozen years before the Louisiana Purchase secured for us peaceful relations with Spain. It was in direct contravention of the treaty stipulations that Spain, in Ocober, 1802, cut short our privilege of deposit at New Orleans, In 1801 Spain, by a secret treaty, ceded the territory back to France. Napoleon planned a great expedition and colony for Louisiana, and had ambitious thoughts of the restoration in America of the French power which fell before England at Quebec. The intimations of the cession from Spain to France created much disturbance and alarm in America. Kentucky was in a flame. The President was deeply stirred. The Spaniards had retained Louisiana on sufferance: the United States could have it at any time from them. But the French would be likely to hold their ancient possessions with a tighter clutch, and not content themselves with two or three trading-posts in a fertile territory large enough for an empire. Jefferson, from the hour when the intelligence reached him, had only this thought: The French must not have New Orleans. No one but ourselves must own our own street door." He addressed urgent instructions and suggestions to Mr. Livingston, our minister at Paris, embodying considerations which he knew wonld find their way to Napoleon. To his French friend, M. Dupont de Nemours, he also presented the American argument in a shrewd and sagacious letter, which he knew would have its weight in official circles. The United States could not let the French control the mouth of the Mississippi, and a conflict about it might finally necessitate an alliance of some sort between ourselves and Great Britain. annual message to Congress in December, 1802, he said, "The cession of the Spanish province of Louisiana to France, which took place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubtless have just weight in any deliberations of the legislature connected with that subject." In his Early in 1803 Jefferson sent Mr. Monroe, as a special ambassador, to join Mr. Livingston in Paris, charged with the fullest instructions, and authorized to give two million dollars, if he could do no better, for the island of New Orleans alone. The desire was to secure also - ten million dollars, if necessary, being authorized for all — such portion of the French territory as lay east of the Mississippi. The acquisition of the immense tract west of the Mississippi was not at the time contemplated. Monroe went, however, carrying with him the feeling of the excited nation and Jefferson's own fuil views, and was doubtless sure that the boldest action which contingencies might dictate would have sanction and approval. "Monroe well knew," says Morse in his Life of Jefferson, "that he had only fulfilled Jefferson's real wishes." "The entire credit- or discredit, if such there were of the achievement,'' he adds, "belonged exclusively to Jefferson." Jefferson himself would have insisted that the credit was shared by those who so ably and tactfully represented him. Madison, then Secretary of State, upon receiving the report of the cession from Livingston and Monroe, wrote immediately (see his letter, July 29, 1803) to express to them Jefferson's "entire approbation of their course; and Randall, in his Life of Jefferson (iii. 61-63), shows by various references how accordant it was with thoughts long in Jefferson's mind. But it was a sudden and unexpected move of Napoleon which really determined the matter. Monroe arrived in Paris to find France on the eve of war with England, and Napoleon in negotiations with Livingston for the transfer to the United States of the whole of Louisiana. Napoleon knew that the British fleet could easily keep French forces away from the Mississippi; and, rather than have Great Britain seize Louisiana, he would sell it to the United States, getting what money he could out of it for use in the impending war. "I know the full value of Louisiana," he said, "and I have been desirous of repairing the fault of the French negotiators who abandoned it in 1763. But, if it escapes from me, it shall one day cost dearer to those who oblige me to strip myself of it than to those to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have successively taken from France Canada, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. They shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet. I already consider the colony as entirely lost; and it appears to me that, in the hands of this growing power, it will be more useful to the policy and even to the commerce of France than if I should attempt to keep it." "I have given to England," he said afterward," a maritime rival that will, sooner or later, humble her pride." The terms of the sale" probably the largest transaction in real estate which the world has ever known" - were agreed upon after considerable bickering, the sum paid by the United States being fifteen million dollars. The treaty contained a positive provision that "the inhabitants 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 enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States." M. Marbois, the French minister, relates that, as soon as the three negotiators had signed the treaties, they all rose, and shook hands; and Mr. Livingston gave utterance to the joy and satisfaction of them all, saying: "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives. The treaty which we have just signed has not been obtained by art nor dictated by force, and is equally advantageous to the two contracting parties. It will change vast solitudes into flourishing districts. From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank. The United States will re-establish the maritime rights of all the world, which are now usurped by a single nation. The instruments which we have just signed will cause no tears to be shed: they prepare ages of happiness for innumerable generations of human creatures The Mississippi and the Missouri will see them succeed one another and multiply, truly worthy of the regard and care of Providence, in the bosom of equality, under just laws, freed from the errors of superstition and bad government. ,, This is almost the only prophetic word touching the acquired territory which has come down to us from the time; and even Livingston was writing to Madison at the same moment that perhaps only New Orleans and the country east of it need be kept, in which case the western territory might be sold to some European power, to get back our purchase money. Jefferson for two years thought it not impossible that as a result of this enlargement of our territory a new nation might be born beyond the Mississippi But in his second inaugural (March 4, 1805) he exclaimed: "But who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions; and, in any view, is it not better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? The great West and its exploration had long been subjects of commanding interest with Jefferson. Old South Leaflet No. 127 is devoted to illustrations of his many services for the North-west. In Paris, in 1786, he met John Ledyard, the adventurous Connecticut traveller : and he writes in his diary (May 17, 1786): "I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the western part of our continent, by passing through St. Petersburg to Kamschatka, and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, whence he might make his way across the continent to America; and I undertook to have the permission of the Empress of Russia solicited. He eagerly embraced the proposition." See also in relation to Ledyard, whose effort failed, Jefferson's letters to Ezra Stiles, Sept. 1, 1786: Charles Thomson, Sept. 20, 1787; and William Carmichael, March 4, 1789. In 1793 Jefferson was the leading promoter of a movement, to be undertaken under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society, for the exploration of the far North-west to the Pacific by André Michaux. The plan miscarried; but Jefferson's instructions to Michaux (January, 1793) are interesting as the expression of an idea later realized in the expedition of Lewis and Clark. That expedition is memorable. It was determined on by Jefferson just as he sent Monroe to Paris to push the Louisiana negotiations. See his message to Congress, Jan. 18, 1803; and his instructions to Lewis, June 20. On July 15, on the eve of Lewis's departure, Jefferson writes to him, "Last night we received the treaty from Paris ceding Louisiana." Jefferson's Life of Captain Meriwether Lewis is printed in Old South Leaflet No. 44Jefferson's varied services for the exploration and opening of the West are graphically summarized in Curtis's "The True Thomas Jefferson," p. 370. The account of Louisiana which Jefferson had prepared for Congress in 1803 from the best available sources, to clear up the general ignorance concerning the territory, is published in Old South Leaflet 105. See his queries concerning Louisiana in letters to Ephraim Kirby and William Dunbar, July, 1803. See arti The best general account of the purchase of Louisiana and of the debates and legislation incident to it is that by Henry Adams in his History of the United States during the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, vol. ii See also Cooley's "Acquisition of Louisiana," Hosmer's "The Louisiana Purchase," and Barbé Marbois's History of Louisiana. cle on Annexations in Lalor's Cyclopedia, the chapter on "The Six Growths of the United States" in William Barrows's "The United States of Yesterday and To-day," and the paper on "The Louisiana Purchase," by Rev. C. F. Robertson, in the American Historical Association's Papers, I. The subject has prominent place in all the biographies of Jefferson. There is an excellent brief account in Gilman's Life of Monroe, in the American Statesmen Series; and the bibliography of the subject, by Professor J. F. Jameson, in the appendix to that volume, is very complete. See also the references in the valuable chapter on "Territorial Acquisitions and Divisions," by Justin Winsor and Professor Edward Channing, in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. vii. The place, however, to which the thorough and first-hand student will go is the American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II. Pages 506-66 of this volume should be carefully read, as here are all the official communications which passed between Washington and Paris. The two conventions signed in connection with the treaty of cession appear here and the student will give special attention to the memoirs prepared by Livingston for Napoleon, Madison's general instructions to Livingston and Monroe, March 2, 1803, Livingston's letters to Madison, April 13 and 17, 1803, giving account of the purchase, and Livingston and Monroe's letter to Madison, May 13, 1803. PUBLISHED BY THE DIRECTORS OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK, Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass. Monroe's No. 129. Messages on FROM MONROE'S SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS, NOVEMBER 16, 1818. Our relations with Spain remain nearly in the state in which they were at the close of the last session. The convention of 1802, providing for the adjustment of a certain portion of the claims of our citizens for injuries sustained by spoliation, and so long suspended by the Spanish Government, has at length been ratified by it, but no arrangement has yet been made for the payment of another portion of like claims, not less extensive or well founded, or for other classes of claims, or for the settlement of boundaries. These subjects have again been brought under consideration in both countries, but no agreement has been entered into respecting them. In the meantime events have occurred which clearly prove the ill effect of the policy which that Government has so long pursued on the friendly relations of the two countries, which it is presumed is at least of as much importance to Spain as to the United States to maintain. A state of things has existed in the Floridas the tendency of which has been obvious to all who have paid the slightest attention to the progress of affairs in that quarter. Throughout the whole of those Provinces to which the Spanish title extends the Government of Spain has scarcely been felt. Its authority has been confined almost exclusively to the walls of Pensacola and St. Augustine, within which only small garrisons have been maintained. Adventurers from every country, fugitives from justice, and absconding slaves have found an asylum there. Several tribes of Indians, strong in the number of their warriors, remarkable for their ferocity, and whose settlements extend to our limits, inhabit those Provinces. 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