V iK :'<4 i ; ■ 1 i j ■ ■■■] ', .1 ) 1 s 'I \ V • i 1 ::■ :. 1 ■'•■-; ■ ! 1 i 18^9 ^▼1 Pass Ln^ THE ORIGINAL TERRITORY UNITED STATES A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 21, 1 899 HON. DAVID J. HILL, LL. D., ASSISTANT SI-XRETARV OF STATE Reprinted from the Nationai, Geographic Magazine, Voi<. X, No. 3, March, 1S99 WASHINGTON, D. C. JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS 1899 GS525 THE National Geographic Magazine Vol. X MARCH, 1899 No. 3 THE ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES By Hon. David J. Hill, LL. D., Assistant Secretary of State In retracing the development of our country we are led back to its infancy — to the cradle around w hich were already grouped the forces which have determined the destiny of the nation. We cannot too often be recalled to the rude simplicity of that earlier time or too often reminded of the elemental sources of our national life — so near to nature, so little afiected l)y the art or thought of man. A great continent, an unknown wilderness, rich with every gift of nature, lies waiting for the men who are to awake it from its sleep of ages, to come across the sea. Strange ships enter its bays and harbors and penetrate its broad and navigable rivers, but it still sleeps on ; for the strangers come only to gather gold among its sands, not to make it theirs by pledges of honest toil. But at last are united the two essentials of a nation — a land and a people ; for while the land lies waste and men are in ceaseless migration, a nation cannot exist. When land and people are wedded by permanent settlement, when man by toil evokes from nature her power to satisfy his domestic needs, and nature re- sponds by kindling within him the flame of local affections, the wheels of society are set in motion, the economic and political forces begin their operation, and the process of national evolu- tion has commenced. I. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CONTINENT The discovery of this continent was destined to deflect all the currents of human history and to offer a home to new nations ; (1) 74 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES yet for more than a centiuy after the voyages of Columhus there were but two settlements within the present limits of the United States, and both of Spanish origin. The Atlantic slope, whose streams flow eastward from the Alleghany mountains, abounds in safe harbors and land-locked bays, in whose restful waters the ships of the early French and English navigators found shelter after their long and perilous voyages ; but the dense forest frowned be3'ond the coast-line, the shore seemed unattract- ive, and the ships sailed southward to the fabled land of gold and precious stones. It was with surprise that the early mar- iners skirted these somber shores barring the wa}^ to India, for they believed that north of Florida, supj)Osed to be an island, the open sea led on to the Indian ocean. ^ A waterway across the continent was diligently sought in the belief that America, if not an island, was but a jirojection of Asia, and John Smith expected by ascending the James, the Potomac, or the Hudson, to emerge upon the South sea. Among his commissions was one to seek a new route to Cliina by ascending the Chickahominy. With the opening of the seventeenth century were planted the first English colonies in America. Humble merchants and pilgrims, wanderers going forth in frail ships to find uncertain lands, holding as their titles vague charters from King James, landed at Jamestown and on Plymouth Rock.' With a world to divide, monarchs were generous in those daj^s, and did their rude surveying on the council table, using parallels of latitude and unknow^i seas for boundaries. It mattered little that the London and Plymouth companies were granted lands overlap- ping by three degrees of latitude, for as neither was allowed to settle within a hundred miles of the other, there was no danger of bad neighbors. When, to rectify all errors, the London Com- pany received new boundaries,'' they were described as extending two hundred miles from Old Point Comfort along the Atlantic coast in each direction, north and south, and "up into the land from sea to sea, west and northwest"— a line which was after- ward held to give to Virginia the greater part of North America. There was no contest for possession of the continent in those early days. Hudson leisurely sailed up the river which now bears his name and claimed it for the Dutch. Gustavus Adol- phus, the "Snow King" of the North, witliout opposition, sent 1 See Da Vinci's map of 1512-151(i. This and tlie other maps lefened to in the notes may be found in McCoun's Historical Geography of the United States. 2 See map of King .James" Patent of KiOO. 3 See map of Heorgauization of tlie Plynn)utli romi>any in KliO. (2) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 75 his hardy Swedes to the Dehxware peninsula. The French went fishing off the foggy coasts of Newfoundland, claimed the gulf and river of St Lawrence for their King, and built their rude huts amid the snows of Acadia. The English settlements were small and feeble communities, trembling between the sea and the wilderness. There is something sublime in the spectacle of this great unexplored continent, guarding the rich treasures of its vast interior b}^ grim sentinels of gloomy forest, confronting with a frown that narrow, halting strip of civilization, whose frail forces, in spite of early poverty and weakness, were destined to become its imperious master. For a hundred years it seemed a most unequal contest. A handful of log-houses clustered about the fortified church, a few acres of cultivated land not far away, little groups of coarsely clad human figures laboring in the fields with rifies near at hand, the infrequent arrival of a storm-beaten ship — -these were the only signs of the coming transformation which for generations met the sharp glance of the stealthy savage as he crept to the edge of the forest to observe the course of the white man's life. The map of the Atlantic slope in 1640* reveals the cramped and perilous condition of the English colonies. Considered as a group, they were wholly inclosed between French territory on the one side and the sea on the other. Beginning with Acadia on the north, the French pressed upon the western limits of New England until their frontiers met those of the Dutch ; then sweeping around the home of the powerful Iroquois Indians, who occupied the greater part of what is now the State of New York, New France, following the line of the Alleghanies, hemmed in all tlie seaboard settlements, cutting them off from the ^^^est, and stretching along the whole western boundary of Virginia until it ended in French Florida, covering the present states of South Carolina and Georgia, beyond which lay Spanish Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. While France thus stood as a barrier to the further })enetration of the continent by the English, leav- ing them o-nh'a slender stri{) of coast, the Dutch and the Swedes effectually separated the northern and southern colonies from each other. To crown all, the Indians, affiliated with the French, who fraternized and mingled freely with them, were a constant menace to the safety of the English settlements, and furnished a savage band of mercenaries for advancing the ambitious schemes of France. ••See map of National Claims to the Atlantic Slope in lil4u. (3) 76 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES Considering the map alone, it would seem as if the French power was so intrenched upon this continent as to possess the keys of its destiny. But there are many factors which enter into the prohlem of nation-building, and the first of these is the temper and quality of men. The French colonies were a nursery, presided over by paternalism. The English threw their offspring out into the wilderness to fight their way for themselves, with no other heritage than libert}'. In Canada the French colonist could not build his own house or sow his own seed or rea}) his own grain or raise his own cattle without the supervision of public officers receiving minute instructions from the home government. No farmer could visit the towns without permission or leave the colony without royal authorization. Public meetings were pro- hibited, initiative of every kind was forbidden, and the expres- sion of opinion was repressed. Petted, i)ampered, and protected by royixX authority, the French colonies were stricken with paraly- sis, and instead of looking to themselves became whoU}^ helpless and dependent. \Vlien, at last, the death-struggle came in the battle for empire, the result was inevitable. Self-government, self-reliance, and freedom were foredoomed to win. The map of 1763,^ before the Peace of Paris, is the record of a hundred and twenty years of struggle and development,in which, with heroism, persistence, and patience the English-speaking col- onists fought for and conquered space. The Dutch, tenacious of their speech and manners, having tliemselves absorbed the Swedes, were in turn engulfed in the English expansion, but not without leaving a deep and lasting impress upon the communi- ties that overbore them. Brave little Holland, the first exchange in Europe for the commerce of the world, a cradle of art and science, a power upon the ocean, and an asylum and school of liberty when England sent her great thinkers across tlie North sea to sit at the feet of her worth}' masters, has always lived, and still lives, in the Empire State and the nation. Her influence, even upon New England, is confessed by John Adams, when he says, ■' of all the countries of Europe, Holland seems to me the most like home." New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware com- pleted the unbroken chain of English colonies from the lawless fishing villages of Maine to the broad {)lantations of Georgia. Between the sea and the mountains had grown up a solid pha- lanx of self-governing colonies as jealous of the French and as *See map of Enijlisli Colonies, \~i\?,. (4) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 77 hostile to their pretensions as the mother country. The colonies of England, which in 1640 were threatened with being pushed into tlie sea, had become a continuous chain of eager contestants for sui)remacy, destined to sweep westward and drive the French dominion from the continent forever. The French had formed a bold and magnificent design for the possession of the vast interior west of the mountains." Near the close of the seventeenth century a brave and brilliant explorer, La Salle, continuing the career of Champlain, who had carried the trade and dominion of France westward to Wisconsin, de- scended the valley of the iMississij)i)i. after traversing the Great Lakes, and planted a French settlement in Louisiana. The St Lawnnice, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, these furnished the natural highway for the genius of the great Frenchman in his progress toward the fulfillment of his splendid dream of empire; but the chief necessit}^ for its realization was men, and these were wanting. At the close of the seventeenth century the French in all the wide region claimed by them numbered only twelve thousand souls, while the English had grown to a hun- dred thousand in New England and New York alone. " The paternal providence of Versailles," says Parkman, " mindful of their needs, sent to the colonists of Louisiana, in 1704, a gift of twenty marriageable girls, described as ' nurtured in virtue and piety and accustomed to work.' " But it required more than a cargo of girls to save New France. The forces of true coloniza- tion were Avanting to the French, whose adventurers were de- scribed by an otticer as " beggars sent out to enrich themselves," and who expected the government to feed them while they hunted for pearls and gold mines. A weak chain of forts and trading posts, occupied chiefly by priests and friendly Indians, was the only bond that held to- gether the long interval of wilderness between the St Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. The governor of New France, La Jonquiere, perceived that the connecting link between these out- posts was the rich valley of the Ohio, and demanded of his King the shi[)ment of ten thousand French peasants to populate this intermediate region. But the thought had occurred too late ; Louis was indifferent, jireoccupied with the ))leasures of his court ; the inevitable conflict came at last and New France was erased from the map of North America. France resisted nobly in Europe, but left the defense of her "See map of the territory of the present United States (hiring the Freneli mid Indian wars. (5) 78 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES American empire to a handful of forces under the gallant Mont- calm, while England sent 9,000 men in ships to Quebec, and the sturdy Americans, amidst great sacrifices, pushed their way through the forest to the St Lawrence to join in the attack. Upon the plains of Abraham, whose heights were scaled by sui)erhuman daring, was fought the battle that decided the fate of Canada, and the dying Wolfe wrung from the hand of the dying Montcalm the keys of the great West and the dominion of a continent. The destiny of America was involved in the issue of that death struggle between the paternalism of France and the forces of self-government. " The town meeting pitted against bureau- crac}'," says Fiske, " was like a titan overthrowing a cripi)le. . . . This ruin of the French scheme of colonial empire was due to no accidental circumstance, but was involved in the very nature of the French political system. Obviously it is impos- sible for a people to plant beyond sea a colony which shall be self-supporting unless it has retained intact the power of self- government at home. It is to the self-government of England, and to no less cause, that we are to look for the secret of that boundless vitality which has given to men of English speech the vittermost parts of the earth for an inheritance." But it was not political causes alone that eflfected the anni- hilation of French influence on this continent. The French, the Dutch, and the Spaniards all surpassed the English in the adventurous s})irit that leads to wide exploration and brilliant discovery ; but the English had come with their wives and chil- dren, and the}^ had come to stay. The}' loved agriculture and industry and knew the meaning of that potential word " home." They were in tlie best sense a sedentary people, forming attach- ments to the soil, and by honest labor with their own hands making it respond to their necessities. With plenty of food and boundless acres awaiting the culture of the toiler, the conditions of a great population were fulfilled. They religiousl}' obeved the scriptural injunction to '" multiply, and replenish the earth," and brought up their numerous children to lead frugal and well-regulated lives, earning their bread in the sweat of their faces. A little later Franklin estimated that the population of the colonies doubled every twenty-five years Avithout counting the immigrants. But it was not so with the French or the Span- ish, who left behind them in the wilderness their half-breed off- spring to be nurtured by Indian mothers and encounter the ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 79 hazards of a rude existence, while they themselves moved on in the path of adventure. It was the compactness of the English colonies, their industry, their frugality, and their prolific rate of increase, under the influence of home, which decided the fate of North America and made the triumph of Wolfe " the greatest turning point as yet discernible in modern history." France emerged from the Seven Years' War defeated, humbled, and overwhelmed, her armies beaten, her navies shattered, her possessions overrun throughout the world. The purpose of the war was colonial supremacy, and it left the map of Europe prac- tically unaltered, but the map of America was totally changed by the Treaty of Paris.' France was driven from the continent, and there remained to her, of all her vast possessions in America, only a few scattered islands. Spain relinquished Florida and retired behind the Mississippi. The whole area east of that great waterway, and the entire territory north of the fiftieth parallel, were united under the dominion of the British Crown. By the Peace of Paris the American continent was thus divided be- tween England and Spain, the work of territorial consolidation under a single power between the Atlantic and the Mississippi was completed, the conditions for the development of one great nation in this vast area were supplied, and there was required to effect its formation only those measures of political reorganiza- tion which the genius of the people could not fail to accomplish. But the chief result of the war was the birth of an American people, a distinct nationality, brought to a consciousness of itself by common interests and common sufferings. It was already a composite fabric, whose warp was of English origin, but whose woof was borrowed from every European country. The indus- trious German, the thrifty Swede, the sturdy Hollander, the virtuous Huguenot, the frugal Scotchman, and the generous but turbulent Irishman were already here, and all had acquired the qualities of a new and indejjendentrace. It has been said that " God sifted three kingdoms to send forth choice grain into the wilderness," but the statement is inadequate. The true mother- land of America is not England, it is the whole of Europe. II. THE TERRITOKIAL CLAIMS AND CESSIONS OF THE STATES It is an interesting fact that the year 1768, the date of the Treaty of Paris, marks also the beginning of that movement ^ See map of the territory of the present United States after February 10, 170:!. Re- sult of the Frencli anil Indian wars. (7) 80 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES toward independence which cuhiiinated in the Declaration of 1776. The King and the Parliament, unniindlul of the great services of the colonies in the destruction of the i)ower of France, chose to regard them as mere sources of revenue for extinguish- ing the enormous debt which Great Britain had incurred in ex- tending her colonial empire. The British theory was that the colonies should i)a3' the cost of the war. The latter, on the other hand, had made great sacrifices for the public good. The war had involved them in a large expenditure of life and mone.y. Thirty thousand men had been killed in battle, and many of the colonies had incurred considerable debts. The imposition of special taxes upon them they considered not only unjust in principle but unwarranted by their conduct toward the British Crown, for whose glory they had bravely fought. When, in 1774, the estrangement of the colonies toward England had reached a crisis, they were thirteen separate communities, with different laws and political organizations, possessing little in common ex- cept the general use of the English language, allegiance to the same King, and the memories of fellowship in the French and Indian wars. Twenty years earlier Franklin had proposed a union for the common defense, and his telling figure of the snake severed into thirteen parts, representing the colonies, over the legend, " Join or die," in the days of the Albany convention, made an indelible impression on the popular mind. The Union, however, had never been consummated, for it was rejected by the colonial assemblies, who feared they might create a new master, and not acceptable to the English Board of Trade, because the idea was too democratic. But Franklin, who w\as then in England as the agent of several colonies, had written an official letter to the Massachusetts Assembly, in which he said : " The strength of an empire depends not only on the union of its parts, but on their readiness for the united exertion of their common force ; " and, to secure this end, he proposed that a general congress be as- sembled to make a solemn assertion of the rights of the colonies and to engage them with each other never to grant aid to the Crown in any general war till those rights were recognized by the King and both houses of Parliament. Accordingly a Congress, styling itself '' Vie delegates appointed by the good people of these colonies,''^ assembled at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774. There was no law or precedent for such a union, and it was not even pretended that the colonial assemblies had the legal riglit to unite without tlie consent of (8) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 81 Parliament, and as if in some measure to break the force of this illegality, the delegates had assembled in the name of " the peo- ple." It was, in effect, the declaration of a new sovereignty. Patrick Henry justified it on the ground that the " colonial gov- ernments were at an end ; " that " all America was thrown into one mass and was in a state of nature." " Where are your land- marks, your boundaries of colonies ? " said he. . . . The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian ; I am an American." His theory was premature, however, for Con- gress had not been appointed as direct representatives of the people, but as committees of organized colonies which had not yet thrown off allegiance to the British Crown ; but his words were prophetic and forecast the philosophy which the Declara- tion of Independence was soon to assert as the expressed con- viction of the nation. The tendency of public thought, however, outstripped the progress of events ; and, believing the delegates to represent the whole territory claimed by the British Crown in America, the people spontaneously named the assembly the ''Continental Congress." To the popular mind the revolution had become the revolt of a continent against the oppression of an island. When Colonel Ethan Allen demanded the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," he uttered the whole philoso])hy of the American Revolution. It soon became apparent that the colonists, to whom their King and Parliament denied the rights of Englishmen, were in fact reduced to '' a state of nature," and the idea of Patrick Henry gained ascendancy. The logical result was the abandonment of all allegiance to the British Crown by the Declaration of Inde- })endence. Ten days before the adoption of the Declaration, Congress had resolved that " all persons abiding within any of the united col- onies, and deriving protection from the laws of the same, owed allegiance to the said laws and were members of said colony." Thus the same power which declared independence gave to the colonial governments all the authority which the}^ possessed. The colonies owed their existence as independent common- wealths, not to their own separate acts and achievements, but to the united action of all combined. Whatever sovereignty they subsequently claimed was wholly derived from the union between them. Alone each colony was but an empty name; (9) 82 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES together they were a sovereign power. It was as a continental force that the people won their independence, and the Nation is in reality older tlian tlie States. All this was felt even at the moment, and on the day the coinmittee for drafting the Declaration of Independence was appointed anotlier committee was directed to prepare the form of a confederation. The power which declared independence and thereby created new sovereignties knew itself to be a mere illusion, except as its acts were ratified by the force of the united nation. But when the Dechiration had in effect brought into being thirteen sovereigns in })lace of one, new problems burst into view. Each of these new states claimed all the rights granted b}-- its own fundamental laws, and in addition its share of the power hitherto accorded to the Crown. What, then, was to be the dis- position of those "Crown lands '' which were not within the actual bounds of any colony, although originally included in their charters — that vast territory lying between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi, Avhich had been won in battle from the rule of France?* Six states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia — by reason of their original char- ters or subsequent treaties, claimed the ownership of all the lands west of their actual boundaries as far as the Mississippi river. It is true that a royal proclamation had been issued in 1763 prohibiting colonial governors from granting patents of land beyond the sources of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic, and that in 1774 the " Crown lands," as they were called, north- west of the Ohio were annexed to the royal province of Quebec ; but these were considered by the colonies unjust encroachments, for had they not freely sacrificed lives and money to conquer this same country from New France? The othercolonies,hoAvever, hemmed in by inelastic boundaries, protested against these large pretensions, maintaining that possessions which had been acquired by the force and sacrifice of all should not be appro- priated for the aggrandizement of a part. New Hamjishire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Mary- land, denied a share of this great territory, saw in the claims of the "' land states " not only an evident injustice in refusing them a part in the fruits of a common victory, but a menace to the equilibrium of tlie states b}^ the arrested development of some »See map of Land Claims of the Thirteen Original States. (10) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 8;^, and the unlimited expansion of others. It was indeed no imagi- nary danger, for by offering free lands to settlers the larger states could easily depopulate the smaller. Silas Deane, who had been sent as commissioner to France, had suggested that the North- west Territory was '' a resource amply adequate, under proper regulations, for defraying the whole exi)ense of the war."' When, therefore, in September, 1776, a resolution of Congress offered a bounty of land to soldiers enlisting for the war, Maryland, seeing that Congress had no land to give and she herself none to contrib- ute, perceived that the states without land would be compelled to bu}^ it of those whose stock was unbounded and at their own price, thus impoverishing themselves and enriching their rivals. Virginia in her constitution maintained her charter claims, whicli if allowed would have made her a mighty empire, greater when developed than all the other states combined. On the 30th of October, 1776, Maryland passed n resolution asserting that Virginia's title had "no foundation in justice, and that if the same or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the smaller states and the liberties of America may be thereby greatly endangered."' and expressed the conviction that, the dominion over those lands having been established by the blood and treasure of the United States, " such lands ought to be con- sidered a common stock, to be parceled out at }>ro])er times into convenient, free, and independent governments.'' Thus by the foresight of Maryland, to which all honor will be forever due, was first posed the momentous question upon whose decision hung the whole harmonious system of govern- ment which we now enjoy. A year later, and a month before the Articles of Confederation were proposed for ratification, it was moved in Congress "that the United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such states as claim to the Mississippi or South Sea (meaning the Pacific), and shall lay out the land l^eyond the boundary so ascertained into sepa- rate and independent states from time to time as the numbers and circumstances of the peojile may require." Only Mary- land, battling for this great and fruitful idea and a})pealing to the wisdom of the people as against the ambition and avarice of the states, voted in the affirmative; but a principle had been laid down whose wisdom was eventually to be perceived by all — a principle which has proved the keystone of tlie Union, sup- porting the splendid arch upon which our local liberties and national power now rest. (11) 84 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES In 1780 New York authorized the limitation of her western boundaries and the cession of her vacant lands to the United States. " She ceased to use the language of royal grants and discarded the principle of succession. She came forth from among her parchments into the forum of conscience in presence of the whole American people, and recognizing the justice of their claim to territories gained by their common efforts, to secure the inestimable blessing of union, for their good and for her own, she submitted to the national will the determination of her western boundaries, and devoted to the national benefit her vast claims to unoccupied territories." Nor can we deny to all the states a share in the honor of a wise and noble compromise. For the consummation of the Union the smaller states intrusted their liberties to the keeping of the greater, and the greater, in a spirit of generosity, finally bequeathed their large inheritance to the common good, and shared the luster of a brilliant destiny with new stars yet to rise in the firmament of liberty. Special praise should be accorded to Virginia, for " in her great cession of the territory northwest of the Ohio, the greatest cession of territory in the histor^^ of the world ever voluntarily made by a powerful state able to defend it, she invited the other states to follow her example, and thus made j^ossible the local governments and magical development of the West, while she averted the jealousy, and possibly the anarchy and ])loodshed, that might liave followed the assertion of her claims." Ml. THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN AMien the long struggle for independence was concluded, it was not to be doubted that the young Republic would hold out with stubborn insistence for the recognition of its sovereignty over the territory east of the Mississippi. After the battles of the war, which ended with Yorktown, came the battles of diplo- macy, which were to be fought with an equal skill and daring. All the glory and pride of colonial supremacy which had ani- mated Great Britain when the Treaty of Paris was made with the French were now to be disputed by the colonies themselves. Instructed to claim the whole of the territory south of the St Lawrence and east of the Mississippi, Franklin proposed, in addition, that England should voluntarily cede Canada, in order that its lands might be sold to raise a fund for the compensation of Americans whose property had been destro3'ed ; to which Lord (12) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 85 Grenville wittil}^ rejoined that he could not perceive what motive England had for giving away a fourteenth i)rovince because she had already lost thirteen. Although the commissioners had been directed to observe the most perfect loyalty to France, and to rely implicitly upon her counsels, we now know that the most moderate territorial pre- tensions of the United States had not one friend in Europe. Spain was represented at the French court by the Count d'Aranda, a subtle diplomatist who bore no love to the young Republic of the West. Fearing alike future encroachment upon the territory of Sjniin and the dangerous contagion of republican i)rinciples, with which her American colonies had already become infected, he made preposterous claims for his country and |)retended that the West was the territory of free and independent nations of Indians, whose sovereignty over their soil should be considered inviolable. Sustained by such flimsy reasons, he proposed to shut the United States between the mountains and the sea, in- terposing a vast Indian territory between them and the Missis- sippi and permitting Canada to extend south to the Ohio river.® Bound to Spain by an ancient family alliance and a secret treaty which made the cession of Gibraltar back to Spain the price of peace with England, France proved the mere advocate of her ally and client. The Count de Vergennes, the able but evasive Minister of Foreign Affairs, had secretly instructed the envoys of France to the United States to oppose by every wile known to the art of diplomacy the American acquisition of Canada, while yet .pretending to favor American expansion. Ra3aieval reports, in great glee, as we now read in his dispatches, how successfully he hoodwinked the President and certain mem- bers of Congress, beguiled by his craft and the sweet influence of their tobacco pipes, and won rapturous expressions of grati- tude from the Sj)anish agent Mirales. " It is a part of the system of Spain, as it is also of France," writes Vergennes, "to main- tain the English in the possession of Nova Scotia and Canada." During the negotiations he says the same to Luzerne, and adds that, of course, "tliis fasliion of thinking should be an impene- trable secret for the Americans." We are not surprised, therefore, that the French court sus- tained the idea of Aranda,'" and desired to crush the United 9 See map of boundary lines discussed at Paris, 1782. loSeemap of Boundaries of the United States, Canada, and the Spanish Possessions, according to tiie Proposal of the Court of France, 1782. (13) 86 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES States by massing to tlie westward the Spanish, the Indians, and the English, leaving the territory of the colonies only a narrow fringe pendant to the broad snowy mantle of the Dominion of Canada, torn from its own shoulders in 1763, and perhaps with the dim hope of its ultimate recovery amidst the strange inter- national vicissitudes that attend defeat and victory. Regarding the fisheries as " a great nursery for seamen," and seeing in them a school for ultiniate supremacy on the ocean, France joined England in seeking to deprive the colonies of their hereditary rights on the banks of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St Law- rence. The keen vision of Vergennes foreknew the future strug- gle for the Mississii)pi valley and the i)Ossession of the Far \\'est, and, faithful to Spain, he ridiculed " the extravagance of the American views and pretentions," and called the demands of John Jay "a delirium not to be seriously refuted." Happily for their country, the American commissioners saw a way to peace without sacrificing the interests of their peoi)le, and although threatened with a vote of censure in Congress for their independent action and disregard of French counsel, they were brave and wise enough to nuiintain every just demand. The Treaty of Versailles not only acknowledged the independence of the United States, secured the rights of the fisheries, and opened the free navigation of the Mississippi, but it confirmed substantially the American claims in the matter of l^oundaries and won a vast territorial empire for the United States." It was one of the greatest victories in the history of diplomacy and laid the foundation of the nation's greatness. The Great Lakes and tlie Mississippi became American highways, and the path to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific was opened to American enter- prise. The peace was received " with a burst of approbation " in the United States, and the refrain was taken up — " No pent-up Utica confines our powers, The whole unbounded continent is ours." The completeness of the victory was resented by Spain, com- pelled to take Florida in place of Gibraltar, and regretted by France, which got nothing at all. The baffled Aranda wrote to his King: "This Federal Republic is born a pigmy. A day Avill come when it will be a giant — even a colossus — formidable to these countries. Liberty of conscience, the facility of estab- lishing a new population on immense lands, as well as the ad- 11 See map of the Oi'iginal Public Domain, 1787. (14) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 87 vantage of the new government, will draw thither farmers and artisans from all nations." Montmorin, the successor of Ver- gennes, wrote to his envoy : " It is not advisable for France to give to America all the stability of which she is capable; she will acquire a degree of power which she will be too well dis- posed to abuse." But that was written before the French revo- lution and from the shadow of a tottering throne. From our great sister republic of today we would receive a different greet- ing, and among its words of amity would be expressions of gratitude for the principles and example of the United States, which have done so much toward the estal)lishment of the French Republic. IV. THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIONAL DOMAIN A cool and temperate Englishman, '' a Air-sighted man in manj^ things," wrote of the prospects of the Confederation soon after the peace: "As to the grandeur of America and its being a rising empire under one head, whether re})ublican or monarch- ical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived, even by writers of romance. The Americans can never be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever ; a disunited peo})le till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little commonwealths or princii)alities, ac- cording to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." The events of the time seemed to justify this dismal pro])hecy, and the fear of its fulfillment agitated the best minds among the American patriots. The vast Northwest Territoi-y having Iteen ceded to the United States by Great Britain, the question Avas, How was it to be held ? Congress instructed General Washington to garrison the frontier })osts, when surrendered, with the conti- nental troops ; but after long and elaborate debates the danger of confiding so much }»ower to the federal government was made the excuse for disbanding the troops and leaving the frontiers to the jirotection of a few state militia. To the aml)itious and jeal- ous leaders in the states, anxious to rise to i)Ower in their nar- row sovereignties, the utility of the Union seemed already i)assed, and the destiny of America appeared to be wrai)i)ed up in the fate of thirteen rival republics, each too feeble to protect itself against foreign aggression and all too suspicious to trust one an- other. The impotent bond of the Confederation became the (15) 88 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES laughing-stock of Europe. To many it seemed that a return to the protection of England was the only way of salvation, for the paper money liad l^econie Avortliless, the fires of local insurrec- tion hurst forth from the ashes of discontent, interstate com- merce was destroyed by petty frontier exactions, and the great experiment of independence seemed doomed to end in anarchy. We cannot here review the disquiet and anxiety of that troubled time, and can only briefly indicate the unexpected cure. The possession of a national domain, composed of terri- tory ceded by the states to the Confederation, proved to be the anchor of the Union. Over this area Congress had assumed a certain degree of power, and it was the only sphere in which the sovereignty of the Confederation could assert itself. In the vast unpopulated stretches of the great Northwest, Congress, by the ordinance of 1784 and the later ordinance of 1787, exercised the right of eminent domain, ruled by its laws, and sold the land to obtain an income. The future states were bound to make their laws in harmony with the great principles of freedom, education, and suffrage laid down by Congress, and under no circumstances could they ever be separated from the Union. " I doubt," says Daniel Webster, " whether one single law of any law-giver, an- cient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787." Thus grew up silently, almost unobserved, yet, as Madison remarked, " without the least color of constitutional authority," a national sovereignty which justified recognition at last by the formation of the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation had contemplated no such exercise of power, and the ordinance was never submitted for ratification by the States ; but the ne- cessity of governing that vast territory had forced upon Congress a course as wise as it was illegal, until, as by a sudden turn in a mountain path a splendid landscape bursts into view, the great and impressive fact that a nation had been created commanded attention; and, seeing its sublime significance, confessing its rightful claims, the whole people felt their kinship and unity, and could express their conviction in the potent phrase, '' We, the people of the United States." The treaty of 1783 stipulated that the navigation of the Mis- sissippi from its source to the ocean should be forever free and open to the citizens of the United States. Spain, however, who was not a party to this agreement, asserted an exclusive control overthe river and denied the right of free navigation. This situa- (16) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 89 tion gave rise to one of the most thrilling controversies in the historv of our countr}', now almost forgotten, but fraught with momentous consequences to tlie future of the American people. Franklin had foreseen the issue when he said to Jay, " Poor as we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather buy at a great price their right on the Mississippi than sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street door." Soon after his retirement from the army, Washington made a tour into the western country, which he had known so well in his early days and whose wealth and value he justly appreciated. His purpose was to ascertain by what means it could be most effectually bound to the Union. The population of that rich and fertile region, a bold and adventurous class, separated by the remoteness of their position from connection with the east- ern states, with little respect for the feeble rule of Congress, in which they had no representation, already showed signs of es- trangement alid independence. So rich a soil, such luxuriant vegetation, had never belonged hitherto to any brancli of the English-speaking race. Plains capable without cultivation of sapi)orting millions of cattle, fields golden with heavy harvests in response to the minimum expenditure of toil, rivers affording great natural highways for the movement of their agricultural productions needed only an adequate market to render the great Northwest the richest portion of the globe. The Atlantic states knew little of this vast region or its untold resources. They looked upon it chiefly as a means for })aying the federal debts })}' the sale of public lands, and did not realize its political sig- nificance until their indifference and the inefficiency of the gov- ernment had almost lost it to the Union. Washington, whose large practical intelligence was so quick to discern great issues, saw the impending danger. Returning from his western journey, he recommended the appointment of a commission to make a survey ascertaining the means of nat- ural water communication between Lake Erie and the tidewaters of Virginia. His project was to o[)en all the possible avenues between the western territory and the Atlantic, thinking thus to identify the interests of the two sections, to offer to the West participation in the advantages of the sea and to enrich the East by making it the emporium of the western productions. But tlie shrewd frontiersmen who had taken up the western lands saw another avenue to the sea and another way to market. It was (17) 90 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES the Mississippi and the trihutaries flowing into it which seemed Nature's great highway ready for their use. Only one barrier op- posed them, the obstinate refusal of 8i)ain, who held the mouth of the great river and its western bank, to permit its free navigation. An interposition so autocratic, so unjust, and so injurious roused the resentment of the strong men of the West and they resolved not to submit to this limitation of their rights. The East, fearing that the West would be lost if not held to its east- ern connections, opposed the opening of the Mississij^pi, pre- ferring a commercial treaty with Spain to free navigation. Con- gress met the problem with the feebleness that characterized its action after the Revolution. Diplomacy was bartering away the rights of the young West, when suddenly a trader, whose ship- ment had been seized by the Spanish authorities, returned to tell the story of his wrong just at the moment when news ar- rived that Congress intended to surrender the present use of the Mississippi. The whole poi)ulation of the western settlements rose in wrath and indignation to protest against the folly by which they were being sacrificed. Looking out over their magnificent domain, whose soil they were redeeming from the idleness of its natural state, they felt that their abundance was turned to pov- erty if the mighty rivers which swept i)ast their fields waving with harvests abundant to sustain the populations of Euro])e, were closed to them, and they themselves shut uj:* in their fer- tile valleys, unable to exchange their wealth of cereals for the merchandise they could not create. But there at the outlet of their noble river stood the obstinate Spaniard, sword in hand, refusing them egress to the open sea and excluding them from the commerce of the world. They must despoil their luxuriant valleys to pour their tribute at his feet, and share with an alien and an enemy, '"the largest return which American labor had yet reaped under the industry of its own free hands." No ; they would not. The}^ had fought the savage and the wild beast. They had come here to accept their heritage from the hand of nature and to find justice without relying on the power of kings. They must go to the sea. If Congress opposed, it was to be defied, as the Crown of England had been in the Revolution. If the Spaniard opposed, they would drive him off" the conti- nent and rid the land of an incumbrance. They set their faces like flint for the empire of the West. Twenty thousand men, trained in the field and the forest, turned their backs to the (IS) ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED tSlATES 91 Alieghanies and their faces toward the great river, resolved to march to its mouth and drive the Spaniards into the sea. Congress could not deny their plea, and yet was not strong enough to espouse their cause. The need of a closer union in place of " the rope of sand "' which bound the states together became evident. The great Northwest must be saved. A new vision burst upon the American people. "A great and inde- pendent fund of revenue," said Madison, '" is passing into the hands of a single body of men Avho can raise troops to an in- definite number and appropriate money to their support for an indefinite period of time. . . . Yet no blame has been whisi)ered, no alarm has been sounded." Since, then, there already existed in the Union a form of sovereign power, Avhy not give it substance? Why not provide the nation with an adequate constitutional basis? Under these circumstances was convoked the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The lands between the Alieghanies and the Mississippi were seen to be the key to the continent. They were the old vantage ground of France. Emigration was setting toward them and in a few years they wovild constitute a mighty empire. They belonged to the people, not to the states, and the common pos- session bound the whole ])opulation together in a corporate in- terest. The discernment of this momentous fact created a new patriotism and Hooded the intelligence of the people with a new light. Henceforth there were to be two kinds of government to correspond to the two kinds of interest that existed — that of the States, preserving their memories, their traditions, and their or- ganizations, and giving perpetuity to their laws and liberties, and that of the Nation, binding them all together in indissoluble union, preserving the common heritage of their people, giving them fraternity at home and prestige abroad, sweeping away the local barriers to trade and intercourse, gathering the whole people under the folds of one glorious flag, and sheltering the sister states under the spacious dome of a common nationality whose protection should extend over all alike. No wonder that tlie Constitution lias been called " the finest specimen of constructive statesmanshi]> that the world has ever seen." It has a character of universality about it like the great laws of nature. It was compacted of historic liberties won in a thousand battles and rendered sacred by colonial memories and revolutionary struggles, yet was made for indefinite growth and future expansion, in view of vast stretches of unoccupied wilder- (19) 02 ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES ness threaded by might}' rivers destined to bear upon their bosoms the commerce ot" untold millions when these trackless wilds should be peopled by the makers of the Great West. 'I'lie history of the United States is the story of its continued bene- dictions. Amjjler vision has broadened the interpretation of its meaning, and enlarged experience has widened the application of its principles; and today, as hitherto, the Constitution is flexible enough to admit of adaptation to all the changing con- . ditions of our national development, 3''et strong enough to hold in one harmonious system fortj'-five great states, spanning the continent and including within their limits every diversity of nature and ever}' variety of man. Designed for a population of three millions, it has become the fundamental law of more than seventy; ratified by a little fringe of people scattered along the Atlantic seaboard, it is accepted by a great continental nation ; % written in a period of legalized slavery, it has laid the founda- '■; tions of universal liberty ; expressing the final goal toward which })olitical evolution is tending — local government for local affairs and a general government for general affairs — it presents a model for the final organization of the entire human race, when some far-distant dawn shall usher in " The parHatnent of man, the federation of the world." (20) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS J^ 011 527 920 8 t '^^4%, *^ ■ \ '%-^ i:?^>-^ y. ' V : .: .^