Third.—The whole country owes a debt of gratitude to all the charter claimants for ceding the only valid titles to this immense territory, and for their firmness and wisdom in resisting and defeating the effort to engraft on the fundamental law the dangerous principle that Congress should have power to abridge the limits of the States, invade their jurisdiction and sequester their territory.
Fourth.—The territory ceded by all charter claimants amounted in area to 404,955.91 square miles, all of which was embraced in the cessions of the four Southern States, Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia. The claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut, extending in belts across the claim of Virginia, amounted to 94,315.91 square miles. Thus, the undisputed area of the cessions by the Southern States amounted to 300,640 square miles. If the area of Kentucky be added, which was erected into a State in 1792, before the completion of the western cessions, the undisputed contribution of the South was 361,040 square miles. The total contribution of the South, disputed and undisputed, including Kentucky, was 445,355.91 square miles.
The cessions of all other charter claimants amounted to 94,315.91 square miles, all of which was disputed. If the area of Vermont and Maine be added, which were independently erected into States, the total contribution of all other charter claimants, disputed and undisputed, would amount to 136,807.91 square miles.
Fifth.—The four Southern States, Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia, were the only States which ceded a foot of land in actual possession and covered by actual jurisdiction. The other States, acting with patriotic motives, conveyed only unadjudicated claims—which was all they had to convey. The Southern States, being in possession, were able to confer possession on the United States. How different might have been the fate of America, had the four great Southern States adhered to their western territory with the tenacity usually shown by powerful states able to defend their possessions. In the language of the first great cession, ‘preferring the good of their country to every other object of smaller importance,’ they laid the foundation of national greatness by voluntary sectional sacrifice, and furnished history its most instructive lesson in the building of nations.
Reference is given to Madison Papers, Vol. 1; Benton's Thirty Years, Vol. 2; Narrative and Critical History of America. Vol. 7; Lecky's History of England, Vol. 4; American Archives, Fourth Series; on the cessions of western lands consult Journals of Congress, Vols. 1, 2, 3 and 4; for the acts of cession, Henning's Statutes, Vol. 10; for various deeds of cession, Public Domain; for Spanish intrigues, Roosevelt's Winning of the West; consult also Life of Patrick Henry, by W. W. Henry; Maryland, by Wm. Hand Brown; Haywood's History of Tennessee.
A decision of the Supreme Court, touching on these cessions, was rendered as late as April 3, 1893, in the case of Virginia against Tennessee. relative to boundary. The court recites the titles of Virginia and North Carolina, as based upon their charters, extending to the South seas, and alludes to ‘the generous public spirit which on all occasions since has characterized her (Virginia's) conduct in the disposition of her claims to territory under different charters from the English government’ United States Reports, 148, October Term, 1892, p. 503.
Among the older historians who have treated this subject are Bancroft, Hildreth and Pitkin. It has, also, been ably treated, in some of its aspects, by modern historians. Among the works which have touched upon the subject more or less in full, are the following:
The Old Northwest, by B. A. Hinsdale.
Fisk's Critical Period of American History.
The Narrative and Critical History of America contains, in Vol. 7, a lucid discussion of the several cessions, and a valuable list of references to various books and pamphlets which discuss phases of the subject.
The Public Domain, Donaldson, is an invaluable government publication, in which important information on this subject is collected.
The settlement and development of this territory are related and questions connected with the cessions are discussed by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in a work of great ability and lucid style, entitled ‘Winning of the West.’
Maryland's Influence on Land Cessions, by Mr. Herbert B. Adams, id the Johns Hopkins Papers published at Baltimore, Md., is an article eulogistic of Maryland, and attributing to that state the chief influence in establishing the Public Domain.
Mr. W. W. Henry, in his Life of Patrick Henry, devotes Chapter 17 of Vol. 2, of his able and interesting work, to the Cession of the Northwest Territory. He clearly demonstrates Virginia's title to all the territory which she claimed.
Chapter 3
The acquisition of Louisiana was ‘an opportunity snatched from fate.’ This terse expression accurately defines the diplomacy by which Louisiana was acquired. The United States did not command the situation, but made skillful use of the opportunity. All the military power which the United States possessed in 1803, and all the diplomatic skill of her statesmen, would have been inadequate to create the conditions which resulted in the acquisition of Louisiana. Two simultaneous revolutions were necessary: a revolution in Europe and a revolution in America. Just in time, the French Revolution swept ‘like a meteor across the sky of Europe,’ so involving other nations that it might be called, with little impropriety, the great European Revolution. Simultaneously came the revolution of political parties in the United States.
Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul of France, and Thomas Jefferson President of the United States. Thus, the two great minds of the world turned at the same time to Louisiana. Napoleon saw in it the means of obtaining a navy, of strengthening the French party in America, and of restraining the power of Great Britain. When the treaty was completed he said: ‘I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride:’ Jefferson saw in it the first giant stride of his country to the Pacific ocean, and the permanent triumph of the political party of which he was the father. It was, indeed, ‘an opportunity snatched from fate.’
Yet, when the minds of these two great men turned to Louisiana its transfer to the United States was not the first thought that occurred to either of them. Napoleon first looked to it as a colony for France. When Jefferson learned of its acquisition by Napoleon it excited his gravest apprehensions. His first thought was to remove the French to the west bank of the Mississippi river, and to secure that river as the national boundary. He at once began the movement to acquire Florida and the Island of Orleans, and entered on the policy which was tenaciously pursued by himself and his political associates until its consummation in 1821.
In pursuing this sagacious policy he took the initiative in the negotiations which led to the unexpected acquisition of Louisiana. Conditions beyond the control either of Napoleon or Jefferson conspired to render the transfer desirable to Napoleon and available to Jefferson.
Attention has been heretofore called to the fact that all our acquisitions of territory, except those from Mexico, have been dependent upon the condition of affairs in Europe. In fact, these conditions have been so remarkable, that they seem to reveal a law of destiny. So peculiar were the relations of Great Britain, France and Spain, that while they all strongly desired to restrain the growth of the United States, yet each, in turn, made important contributions to its territorial expansion. In the peace negotiations at Paris, on the question of the extension of her boundaries beyond the Alleghanies and the Ohio, the United States found a friend in her enemy, Great Britain, and enemies in her friends, France and Spain. The liberality and magnanimity of Great Britain placed her almost in the light of a donor.
In the crossing of the Mississippi in 1803, the positions of France and Great Britain were reversed. France was now the ceding power, while Great Britain looked on with polite envy, and Spain threatened to interfere. A few years later Spain became, in turn. the ceding power. Strange, indeed, that these three European powers should find in their relations with each other, reasons which impelled each in succession to contribute to that expansion of the United States which they all desired to prevent.
To trace the causes which led to this remarkable result, it is necessary to take a rapid review of the well-known historical events following the close of