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PACIFIC OCEAN?

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OUR TITLE TO OREGON.

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f ,' JOHN J. ANDERSON, PH. X>, J^

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NEW YORK :

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CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishrbs,
r> Bakclay STnEETi, ;/:^"U'^.'

1881.

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DID THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXTEND
TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN?

nV JOHN J. ANMl'.KSON, I'H. I).

The Ninth Census Report of the United States, bcin.c; for the year 1870,
contains a map which represents the Province of Louisiana, commonly known
as tlie Louisiana Purchase, acquired from France in 1803, as stretching from
the Mississippi river t(i tlic Pacific ocean. Up to the appearance of that report
it was frenerally luiderstood and believed that the territory in question extended
no farther west tlian the Rocky Mountains. Every author of note, so far as is
within the writer's knowledge, who has expressed any opinion on the subject,
has so declared; but since the advent of the report, several compilers of
schof)l iiistories, adopting; the verdict of the map and thus without makinij any
investigations for themselves, have asserted in their books that the Purchase
extended to the Pacific. One compiler, while adhering to his former state-
ment, that " What is now the State of Louisiana, was but a little part of the
vast territory which then bore that name, for this territory extended from the
Mississi[)pi to ^he Rocky Mountains," has insertefi in his bof>k an exact cop)' of
the census map referred to, without correcting any of its errors, one of which
includes Texas as a part of the cession made to the United States in 1848. Need
he lie told that Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845, and was imme-
diately after represented in our Congress at Washington ? There are other im-
portant errors in that map, notably one in respect to the original territorial limits
of Kentucky.* It is thus seen that while some instructors are teaching that the
western limits of the Louisiana Purchase did not extend beyond the Rocky
Mountains, others hold that they did not stop short of the Pacific coast.
Whom are we to believe ? As both sides cannot be correct, and the subject is onr
of acknowledged importance, we will make a brief investigation into the facts.

In the year 1682, the French explorer La Salle descended the Mississippi
river to its mou.h, taking formal possession of the country in the name of his
king, Louis X!\'. The Spaniards, under De Soto, had previously discovered
the Mississippi and wandered over a large part of its valley, but neither De
Soto's party nor any of his countrymen ever followed up the advantage thus
gained by making a settlement within the territory, and consequently, accord-
ing to the law of nations, Spain failed to reap the fruits of De Soto's success.
The French were more active. In this great valley of the Mississippi they
planted settlements and established missionary stations and military posts,

* The ^^Tite^ addressed a note to General l'\ A. Walker, Superiutendent of the Census, asking
him for the information that induced him in his report to include tlv! Orej^on rejjicm in the Loris-
iana Purchase. The general, in his reply, says: " My reason for ombracin^; Oregon in the terri-
tory covered by the Louisiana Purchase, for the purposes of the map printed in connection with the
reports of the Ninth Census, or, rather, for allowing the map which Col. Stocking had prepared,
to go into the work without correction in tliis particular, was, that the United States government,
as I recall the negotiations, had made claim to Oregon by virtue of the Louisiana Purchase." In
another communication, addressed to a prominent western educator, respecting the western limits
assigned in the map to the Louisiana Purchase, the general goes further, saying: '■'• I am free to
confess tliiit my iiKf/vii/na/ vien<s ifo not rohtci'de tfiereivith,"

The LouisiaJia Purchase.

and thus Vjccamc the ri},'htful owners of the entire region. If Spain at that
time could hiy any claim wliatoviT to the region, that claim was surrendered to
France in due time, as we shall see. Already we come to the important ques-
tion ui)on which hinges the solution of the whole mattiT. What was *\\e. extent
of the territor}' not merely occupied but claimed by the French? Parkman, in
liis " Discovery of the Great West," a work evincing? extensive and patient
researc'i, says (p. 2S4J : "The Louisiana of to-day is but a single State of the
American Rt-p-jblic. The Louisiana of La Salle stretched from the Alleghanies
to the Rooky Mountains, from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest
springs of the Missouri." Greenhow, in his " History of Oregon and Califor-
nia" (p. 283), makes a like declaration, and so do all the other writers who have
given special investigation to the subject.

The French remained in possession of Louisiana till 1762. In November of
that year, preliminaries of peace were agreed to at Paris, between France and
Spain on the one side, and England and Portugal on the other, and, by the
treaties directly afterward made, France ceded to Spain "all the country known
under the name of Louisiana, as also New Orleans and the island on which
that city is situated," and Great Britain, a little more than two months later,
"received possession of Canada, Florida, and the portion of Louisiana east of
the line drawn along the middle of the Iberville river to the sea." Spain thus
came in quiet possession of all the region of Louisiana west of the Mississippi
and the Iberville, (The Iberville is an eastern outlet of the Mississippi, about
fourteen miles south of Baton Rouge.) The fact that arrests our attention at
this stage of the investigation is that while the treaties made at Paris gave
Louisiana a definite boundary on the east, nothing was said of a western
boundary. Why was this omission ? Greenhow (p. 279) offers a partial expla-
nation in these words: " W^ith regard to the western limits of Louisiana, no
settlement of boundaries was necessary, as the territory thus acquired by Spain
would join other territory of which she also claimed possession." The western
part of Louisiana, it will be noted, joined other territory : it did not extend to
the Pacific.

During the next thirty-eight years Spain was in possession of Louisiana.
In the year 1800, an exchange of territories was effected, Spain, in order to
enlarge the dominions of one of her royal princes, transferring to France the
r^rovincc of Louisiana in exchange for certain lands in Italy. The language of the
transfer is an important factor in this investigation. " His Catholic majesty,"
so says the transfer, " engages to retrocede to the French Republic, the Province
of Louisiana, with the same extent which it now has in the hands of Spain,
and which it had when f ranee possessed it , and such as it should be, according
to the treaties subsequently made between Spain and other states." Was lan-
guage ever more explicit? This does not look like giving to Louisiana the
Pacific ocean for its western boundary. " Certainly," as has been aptly remarked,
" no treaties entered into by Spain could enlarge the extent of Louisiana. Cer-
tainly Spain never relinquished more than she received."

We now come to the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United
States, This was accomplished, we all know, during Jefferson's administra-
tion. It is a matter of history that Jefferson had no thought of securing for
the United States more territory than enough to give us the free navigation of
the Mississippi river. In his letter of Feb. i, 1803, to Mr. Dupont, he says:
"The country which we wish to purchase is a barren sand, six hundred miles
from east to west, and from thirty to forty and fifty miles from north to south."

The Louisiana Purchase.

Siirh being the case, Napoleon's proposition to sell the whole Province of
Louisiana produced, as may well be supposed, a great surprise to the American
negotiators in Paris, for they had only made eflbrts to procure a "cession of
New Orleans and the Fioridas." Transcending their authority, they accepted
the offer, and the purchase was elTectcd on the 30th of April, 1803. Now, the
vital question just here is. What did we buy? How large was the purchase?
The treaty, or, as we may call it, the bill of sale, itself, will best answer the ques-
tion. After reciting the third article of the treaty of 1800, the territory thus
retroceded to Franc e was, says the bill of sale, "ceded to the United States, in
the name of the French Republic, as fully and in the same manner as it had
been acquired by the P'rench Republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty
with his Catholic majesty." This, and nothing mi^re. "No other description
of boundaries, " says Grccnhow, "could ever be obtained from the French gov-
ernment." It was distinctly asserted by Marbf)is, the negotiator of the treaty
on the part of Napoleon, that the French never owned any part of North
America west of the Rocky Mountains. It is plain that " France could not sell
to the United States in 1803 more than she recovered from Spain in iSov:)." In
our negotiations with Spain, commenced at Madrid in 1804, for the adjustment
of the lines which were to separate the territories of the two governments,
Spain contended "that the Louisiana ceded to Spain by France in 1762, and
retroceded to France in 1800, and transferred by the latter power to the United
States in 1803, could not, in justice, be considered as comprising more than
New Orleans, with the tract in its vicinity east of the Mississippi, and the coun-
try immediately bordering on the west bank of that river" (Greenhow, p. 280) ;
and in 1818, up to the clcse of the long-pending negotiations, now conducted
at Washington, Don Onis, the Spanish minister, firmly reiterated this declara-
tion (Mildreth, vol. VI„ p. 647). On the 12th of March, 1844, Mr. A. V. Brown,
from the "Committee on the Territories," made a report in Congress, covering
twenty-four closely-printed pages, in which this whole question is thoroughly
discussed. In all this long report there is not the first attempt to prove that
our right to Oregon came to us through the Louisiana Purchase. Witness the
language of the report : 'The Louisiana treaty cedes to the United States the
Province of Louisiana, with the same extent it had in the hands of Spain in
1800, and that it had when previously possessed by France. This description
is loose, but Napoleon chose to execute a quit-claim rather than a warranty
of boundaries." But why did Napoleon so choose? Why did he not give us a
deed of the territory to the Pacific? For the best of all reasons. He did not
own, nor had he ever owned, that extent of territory. He sold us just what he
had — nothing more. He wanted the money, for just at that moment he was
going to war with England ; and we, when the unexpected opportunity came,
discovered that we wanted the land he could sell — every inch of it.

In support of the conclusion we have reached witness the following testi-
mony :

"The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo, from its
mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands and mountains dividing
the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Pacific. On the waters of
the Pacific we can found no claim in right of Louisiana." — Jefferson to John
Melish, Map- publisher, of Philadelphia, Dec. 31,1816.

" We are forced to regard the boundaries indicated by nature — namely, the
highlands separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the
Pacific or the California Gulf — as the true western boundaries of the Louis-

Onr Title to Oregon.

iana r<'flc(l bv Franco to Spain in 17^12, and rctrorpdorl to France in 1800,
and transferri'd to the United States by France in 1S03."— AVVv*// Grcenhino.

"We find Louisiana supported on the west border, as if by a buttress, by the
fjreat ciiain of mountains that give s-ource to the Missouri and Columbia
rivers." — W'ilh'ain Darhy,

" The shores of tlie western ocean were certainly not included in the cession"
of Louisiana to tiie United States. — J/. Marbois.

The conclusion of the whole matter is that no part of the territory west of
liic Rocky Mountains came to ns by reason of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803,
in this conclusion all the best authorities — Spanish, French, and American —
aj^reeing. It need not be added that the English took the same view of the
subject.

Our Title to Orej^^oii.

If, then, the region west of the Rocky Mountains now covered by the State
of Oregon and the territories of Washingttm and Idaho did not come to us as
a part of the Louisiana Purchase, in what way did it come? Let us see.

It is certain that Spanish navigators were the first to reach the western
coast of North America. Their explorations, begun by Cortez and under his
direction, were continued byCabrillo (in 1542), who examined the coast as far as
the northern limitsof San Francisco Bay. The death of Cahrrllo occurring while
he was engaged in this enterprise, his pilot, Ferrelo, prosecuted the undertaking,
reachin<j the point as far, probably, as the forty-third degree of latitude (1543).
Soon Spanish galleons crossed the Pad lie from Mexico to the Philippine Islands
and China, and ret urning, were compelled, by reason of the easterly or trade winds
in the lower latitude, to take a northward course. In consequence, they often
struck the North American coast far vo the north of Mexico, in one case, it is
asserted, beyond the fifty-seventh degree.

Up to 1575 no Elnglish vessel had been in the Pacific. In that year a party
of English freebooters commanded by John Oxenham, crossed the Isthmus of
Darien, built a small vessel, launched it on the Pacific, and for several months
pursued a career of piracy, Spanish vessels, of course, being the victims. At
length they were captured, and, with few exceptions, hung. Three years later
their fate was avenged by the "splendid pirate," as Bancroft calls him, Francis
Drake. Entering the Pan tic by way of the Straits of Magellan, Drake plun-
dered the Spanish settlements on the west coast of America, captured, pillaged,
and destroyed Spanish vessels; and then, surmising that the people whom he
had so cruelly treated were making pr'parations to intercept him on his return,
resolved to make an attempt to ri;ach England by sailing across the Pacific and
around the northern part of Asia and Europe. After proceeding in a north-

[NOTE. — The third extract given above is from tlie second edition of Darby's Geographical
r>e:cripttoii a/ Louisiana, 360 pages, published in New York in 1817; a work commended in tlie
highest terms by Wni. C. C. Clairborne, Andrew Jackson, '1 ijomas Jefferson, ar, \ others, as
appears by their letters published with the book. Mr. Greenhow's volume is an ojjft tal work of
492 pages. It was f)repared under the sanction of the government, and " was published by author-
ity of the United States Senate." Is there any map or document of higher authority? li was
Secretary Buchanan's reliance in his negotiations with Pakenhani, the Bntish envoy, and stands
to-day the most complete and trustworthy exposition of the Oregon Question. The fourth extract
is from the History 0/ Louisiana, by Marbois, Najwleon's Minister of the Treasury, by whom the
negotiations were conducted, in 1803, on the part of the French, for the sale of Louisiana to the
United States. The book was published in 1829, and, as Is readily seen, its statements are
deserving of the h"ghest credit.]

Our Title to Ore iron.

westerly direction for several weeks, .and encounterinjjfcold and violent rains, he
nut buck to the American coast. Al)anf!oning the attempt northward, from
San Francisco Bay or the Bay of Bode;j;a — it is not certain which — he madu
his second and, as it proved successful departure. What extent of coast
Drake saw is not known. Tie never made any report, either by journal or
other writmg; but it is certain that what he did sec liad been jjreviously seen by
the Spaniards.

For a period of nearly two hundred years, if we except a voyage made by
Vizcaino in i(')03, under instructions from King Philip II., of Spain, no attempts
were made to explore any part of the north-western coast of North America.
Vizcaino's explorations extended to the forty-third parallel of latitude; and till
1774 nothing was known with certainty of any part of the coast further north
as far as Alaska. Then, by direction of the Spanish king, four exploring
voyages were sent in quick succession fron, Mexico, and the coast as far north
as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude was carefidly examined (1774- 1779). Up to
this time and until 1790, Spain's claims to the western side of America as far
north as Alaska had at no time been called into question. Important explora-
tions, however, had been made on the extreme north-western part of the conti-
nent on behalf of the Russians. Behring's Straits had been entered by the
daring navigator whose name it still bears, and between 1741 and 1770 the
whole of the Alaska coast, down to its southernmost point, was explored.

We have noticed the voyage made by Francis Drake (1577-1580). No fur-
ther explorations were made l)y the English in the North Pacific for a period
of about two hundred years. Then the celebrated Captain C"ook appeared upon
the ocean. It was believed at that time that there existed a passage connecting
Hudson's Bay with the Pacific. Cook's object was to find it. He entered the
Pacific, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and in January of 1778 discovered
the Sandwich Islands. Steering eastward he reached the American coast, and
traced it many hundred miles, but as the same had already been explored by the
Spaniards or Russians, no credit, on the ground of first discovery, could be
accorded to him. Other voyages were made to the coast by Russians as well
as Englishmen, their object, in most cases, being for furs; but none of them
were of any importance as respects our present investigations. We now come
to the facts upon which the government of our country based its claim to the
Oregon region. By this term — the Oregon region — we mean all the domain
west of the Rocky Mountains, now included in the State of (Oregon and the
territories of Washington and Idaho.

In the latter part of 1787, the ship Columbia, commanded by John Kendrick,
and the sloop W^ashington, commanded by Robert Gray, sailed from Boston.
They were laden with an assortment of " Yanicee notions," the vessels and
cargoes being owned by a company of Boston merchants, whose object was to
open a trade for furs along the north-west coast of North America, and to com-
bine this with a trade to China. Both commanders were provided with letters
in conformity with a resolution of Congress, and also with friendly letters from
the Spanish minister in the United States. Soon after passing around Cape
Horn, the two vessels were separated by a violent storm, but succeeded in
joining each other again in Nootka Sound, on the west of Vancouver's Island,
where they remained till the spring of 1789. During the summer of that year,
while the Columbia remained at anchor in the sound, Captain Gray, in his little
sloop of less than a hundred tons, made several excursions north and south
along the coast, returning with the furs procured, and transferring them to the

6 Our Title to Oregon.

Columbia. In tliese excursions he made Important explorations and was the
first navi;/at(>r to pass between the mainland and many islands off the coast.
Leaving Kendrick, by agreement, Gray, in the Columbia, proceeded to China,
exchanged his furs for a cargo of teas, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope,
and across the Atlantic to Boston, thus carrying the American flag for the first
time around the wfjrld. Meanwhile, Kendrick, in the Washington, made
further explorations, and preceded all Europeans in passing through the Straits
of Juan de Fuca from one end to the other.

Again, in 1791, was Captain Gray, this time in command of the Columbia,
busy exploring the inlets and passages of the north-west coast. In the summer
of that year he met with what proved to be a most important success, in finding
a great river. This river, in May of the following year, he entered, and for a
distance of about twenty miles carefully explored, bestowing upon it the name
of his vessel, which it bears at the present day. The English navigator,
Vancouver, had previously declared, after having made, as he supposed, a
minute examinatif)n of the coast, that there vas no river in that part of North
America.' The discovery of the Columbia and its exploration by Gray con-
tribute the first element in the United States title to the Oregon region. We
have the testimony of the British commander, Mackenzie, that from this time,
or a period four or five j'cars later, till 1814, the direct trade between the north-
west coast of North America and China was almost entirely in the liands of
the Americans. These men were called " Yankee adventurers" by the British,
for, with " only a few trinkets of little value," they would set out on their
voyages, would " pick up " seal-skins, furs, sandal-wood, sharks' fins, and pearls,
and with these and a " handful of Spanish silver dollars," would purchase car-
goes of tea, silks, and nankeens, getting home in two or three years.

We now come to the sec(3nd clement in the United States title to the Oregon
region. In January, 1803, President Jefferson sent a message to Congress recom-
mending that certain western explorations should be made. His object, as made
known in the message, had reference to the extension of the trade enterprises
of the people of the United States. Occupation and settlement were no doubt
also contemplated. The recommendation having been approved, an expedition
was planned and the command of it given to Captain Lewis and Lieutenant
Clarke. These two "men were instructed to explore the Missouri river to its
sources, and then " to seek and trace to its termination in the Pacific some
stream which might offer the most direct water communication across the
continent." Before, however, they had advanced further than the Mississippi
river, the news came that Napoleon had proposed to sell the Louisiana terri-
tory to the United States, and then that the sale and cession had been made.
As the western expedition had. been planned without reference to the acquisi-
tion of Louisiana, its departure was not delayed because of that acquisition.
Lewis and Clarke ascended the Missouri, crossed to the headwaters of the
Columbia, and, descending that stream for a distance of six hundred miles, in
November (1805) reached its mouth. This pedition, says Greenhow, "was an
announcement to the world of the intention of the American government to
occupy and settle the countries explored, to which certainly no other nation,
except Spain, could advance so strong a claim on the ground of discovery or
of contiguity."

The tiiird element in the United States title to the Oregon region was
furnished in 181 1 by a company whose operations were directed by John Jacob
Astor, of New York. Where the city of Astoria, in Oregon, now stands, the

Our Title to Oregon.

company built sheds and a large factory. They also constructed and launched
a small vessel, and laid out and planted a garden. We need not relate the
particulars of the events of the next few years connected with the history
of Astoria; how, during our second war with England, the place fell into the
hands of the enemy, and how, after the war, because of a provision in the
treaty of Ghent, iL was restored to us. Our purpose is accomplished when we
state, on evidence that was finally admitted by all parties, that the Astor settle-
ment was the first in all the Oregon region. And this, as against Great Britain,
completed and made perfect the United States title to the region on the
principle laid down by Jefferson, in his letter to Mr. Melish, "that when a
civilized nation takes possession of the mouth of a river in a new country, that
possession is considered as including all its waters."

In the meantime, however, Great Britain bep'an to lay claim to the Oregon
territory on the ground of exploration and alleged prior settlement ; but no
negotiations were entered into with any power for the sovereignty of the region
before the year iSi8. In that year it was agreed between our government and
Great Britain that all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, claimed by
the United States or Great Britain, "should be free and open to the vessels,
citizens, and subjects of both for the space of ten years." It was at no time
"asserted by the American government that the United States h.-id a perfect
right to that region ; it was insisted, however, that their claim was at least
good as against Great Britain."

We now come to the final element in the United States title to the Oregon
region. We have shown what was Spain's claim to the country as far north
as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude. That claim, certainly to the largest
portion of the territory, was indisputable as respects discovery and exploration ;
but as Spain had failed to make any settlement, or any that proved permanent,
there was "a flaw in the title," as the lawyers say. The claim, however, was
certainly valid as against that of Great Britain, and was, as we have shown,
superior to it. In 1 819, a treaty, commonly called the Florida Treaty, was made
between Spain and the United States, by which it was agreed that the southern
boundary line of the United States, on the west to the Pacific, should be the
forty-second parallel of latitude; the king of Spain "ceding to the United
States all his rights, claims, and pretensions to any territory north of said line."
It is worth observing just here that the Melish m;ip referred to in the treaty,
and accepted by both governments as correct and for their guidance, gives the
Rocky Mountains as the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase, the region
beyond to the Pacific being designated as the Unexplored Region. This is
another evidence that the United States did not claim the region as a part of the
Purchase. The cession made by Spain, it is obvious, completed the United
States title to the Oregon region. That title, as we have now shown, rests (i)
upon the discoveries and explorations made by Captain Gray; (2) the explora-
tions conducted by Lewis and Clarke ; (3) the formation of the Astor establish-
ment ; and (4) the title devised from Spain.

The mere recital of the facts in the case, as we have here fairly and faith-
fully presented them, we think ought to be sufficient to lead every person who
takes the trouble to examine them, to the conclusion reached in this paper.
But, to make certainty doubly sure, we submit the following testimony.

The controversy between the United States and Great Britain respecting the
sovereignty of the Oregon region covered a period of about thirty years. The
prominent negotiators on the part of the United States were (first) Richard

8 Our Title io Oregon.

Rubh, Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain ; (second) Albert Gallatin, also
Envoy Extraordinary; and (tiiird) James Buchanan, Secretary of State during
Poliv's administration. By an examination of the official correspondence of
these <i;enticmen, and the official reports of their many conferences, we will be
l)est able to determine on what grounds our government laid claim to the region
in dispute, for it cannot be supposed that we held one view, one set of convic-
tions, and at the same time instructed our representatives to urge another. It
is safe to say that we on every occasion made the best claim possible founded
on the best reasons.

On the •J2d of July, 1823, John Quincy Adams, Sec. of State, wrote to Mr.
Rush: "The right of the United States to the Columbia River and to the
interior territory washed by its waters, rests (i) upon its discovery from the
sea, and nomination by a citizen of the United States; (2) upon its exploration
to the sea by Lewis and Clarke ; (3) upon the settlement of Astoria, made under
the protection of the United Stales; and (4) upon the subsequent acquisition
of all the rights of Spain." In the letter to Mr. Rush, from which we take the
foregoing extract, Mr. Adams makes not the slightest allusion to the Louisiana
Purchase, On the 12th of August, 1824, in a long communication covering
many pages, Mr. Rush replies to Mr, Adams with great clearness, giving an
account of the discussions whirh he had carried on with the representatives of
the British government, but not the first intimation, from beginning to end, is
made concerning any claim by reason of the Louisiana Purchase. We next
come to the correspondence between Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, and Mr.
Gallatin. This commenced in the summer of 1826. Mr. Clay says not the first
word of the Louisiana Purchase; and Mr. Gallatin, in his able and exhaustive
discussion of the subject, as manifested in his letters, and in his celebrated
pamphlet of seventy-five pages, published in 1846, and more recently repub-
lished in the third volume of iiis " Memoir and Writings," edited by Henry
Adams, makes but the briefest allusion to the Louisiana Purchase ; and even
this allusion merely connects the region in dispute with the Purchase as an
inference or "contiguity," not as an original and actual part of it, the exact
language use(' by Mr. Gallatin being as follows: " This utter disregard of the
rights of discovery, particularly of that of the mouth, sources, and course of a
xwcx, of iheprimiple of couiis;tnty,Q.n6. of every other consideration whatever,
cannot be admitted by the United States." {Adams's Memoir, etc., vol. III., p.
493.) The whole bent of Mr. Gallatin's argument is to show that our title to
Oregon came to us through discoveries, exploration, and occupation.

In addition to all this we have read with care Mr. Cushing's report made to
Congress in January, 1839, numerous pamphlets, presidents' messages, reports
of debates in Congress, an able article in the North American Review, as well
as the English books by Thomas Falconer, Tavers Twiss, and John Dunn — all
reviewing and disc issmg the Oregon Question ; but nowhere have we seen
any attempt whatever to prove that any part of the region west of the Rocky
Mountains ever belonged to France, or that France ever made any pretense of
conveying it to the United States. It was no part of the Louisiana Purchase.
Our title to the Oregon region, as before stated, rests (i) upon the discoveries
and explorations made by Gray, (2) the explorations conducted by Lewis and
Clarke, (3) the formation of the Astor settlement, and (4) the acquisition of all
the rights of Spain.

; !

: t

; 1

A NEW U. S. HISTOEY OX A NEW PLAN.

A POPULAR

School Histoi]y of the Dnited Stjites

IS WHICH ARK IXKEltTEI), AS PAKT OF THE NABRATIVB,

Selections from the Writings of Eminent American Historians and other

American Writers of Note. :

TO WHICH ARE AUUIJU

Ttir Decfarafioii of Iitdept'iidi-ncc ami the Constitution of the
United Stilt es, irith vopions \otes.

Fully Illustrated with Maps, Portraits and Views. -'" ',. :-';

By JOHN J. ANDERSON, Ph.D., ' ^^ - -

Author of a " Grammar School Ilistiiry of Vie Vnilcil States,'" " ^flmual of Genrrnl Iliatory,'''
"History of EiKjIand," "'History of l''r(im-(\" " Thf Historical Leuilcr,"

'^ The United Stdtes L'euler^" etc., etc. '.'.

A text-Iiook upon the history of our country so (•oni))ilftl as to he a pleasant reauing book
with enough variety to give it all the interest j)roperly tieloiigiuK to a reading-book, and, at the
same time, contain all the Unite 1 States histoiy that is required for ordinary school purposes, has
long been desired by many teachers.

It has been the aim of the author of this work to mci-t this want by wea\ ing in as a part of
the narrative long extracts from the writings of eminent authors, so that nearly all the great
events of om- country s history are given in the words of Haiicroft, I'l-escott, Irving. Motley, Haw-
thorne. I'arknnin, I'alfrey, and other distinguisheil writers, thus making a very interesting and
fascinating volume. This has been so skilllully dune that no break occurs in thii continuity of the
narrative. '

It has been the aim of the writer to give only those events that were important in themselves,
or that Inid an important bearing upon or relation to important r(^sults. It will be seen, then, that
very much of that which fin<ls a place in the onliuary :vhool history is not found here. Uelails, .
excejit us far as they are necessary to ilie proper imderstanding of what should Ix^ known, are
entirel.v omitted. tJenerally, they are not worth knowing, and, consetiuently, no time should be
spent in ImnlH'iing the min(l with them. For the same reason, datesi have been given sparingly.
Tlie most prominent, tliose that mark the great events, ai-e clearly given, wliile otlier events are
regarded as (contributing to or resnlli'i.if frmn these. More i)roniinence has beeti given to the facts
that have to do with the nation's. progress in civil tnatters than' to thost> of a military char.>cter.
Th."rpf(vr(, t^u- hiTentinji of the cotloTi gin, and the magnetic telegraph, ond the constrMction of
railroads and stean-.ooats, with the changes resulting therefrom, have been regarded and treated
as of niore value than the numerous suiall batiles that in no wise modillcU the tendency of great
events.

The nunu'rous maps in the work cover all the geograph.v belonging to the events narrated that
have occurred within the limits of the Utiited States or Mexico.

The volume Is amply provided with Chronological Tables, Summaries, etc., etc., which so
peculiarly characterize theliistories of this author.

370 pageit, 1'itno. I'rirr, for liitrmluctlou, 83 centH, "^ .• •

Allowance for old bock in nse, of eimiUr grade, when given in ezcliange, 33 oenti. V ''"\^

Hooks ordered for introduction will be delivcivd at above-named price in anj* part of the
United States. A sample copy for examination, with a view to introduction, will be sent by mail
to teacher or school officer, oil receipt of the introduction price. Address ,, .;>-..' .1

CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishers. ;^V>;'V--

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