Beginning at the mouth of the St. Croix, the line passed up the middle of that river to its source, then due north to the old Quebec boundary, which it followed to the St. Lawrence, whence it ran as at present to the Lake of the Woods. From there an impossible line was to be drawn due west to the Mississippi River, for, as nobody knew where that river rose, its source was believed to be in British America. Passing down the Mississippi, the line went southward to the 31st degree of north latitude, then eastward along this parallel to the Appalachicola, down the Appalachicola to the Flint, and by the present south boundary of Georgia to the sea. Our country nowhere touched the Gulf. To so much of the territory thus enclosed as lay west of the mountains, seven of the thirteen States, asserting the ill-described bounds of their charters, had already laid claim. Unable to adjust their disputes, and actuated by a desire to do good, the States now began to cede their western lands, and by 1787 New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut had, with a few reservations, deeded to the Continental Congress as public domain all that splendid region which lies between the Mississippi, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Great Lakes. Gladly accepting the trust, Congress in 1787 named the domain "The Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio," passed the famous "Ordinance of 1787" for its government, and provided that on its soil should be erected not less than three nor more than five States, to be in time admitted into the Union. Following the example of their Eastern sisters, the Southern States in turn made cessions, and by 1802 Tennessee and so much of Alabama and Mississippi as is north of the 31st parallel of north latitude had been made public domain by North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Disputes meantime had arisen with Spain and France. Angry that she had not obtained a line through the mouth of the Yazoo River as the boundary of West Florida, Spain refused to accept the parallel of 31° as the south boundary of the United States, occupied and fortified Baton Rouge and Natchez, and, owning both banks of the Mississippi at its mouth, she refused to allow citizens of the United States to enter, or go out of, the river. During the twelve years which followed the close of the Revolutionary War it was not possible to move her from this position. In 1795, however, she yielded, and made her first treaty with the United States, accepted 31° as the boundary, agreed to withdraw her troops and garrisons north of the parallel, and gave to citizens of the United States the privilege of depositing their goods and merchandise at New Orleans and then exporting them after paying a fair price for the hire of storehouses. The concessions in the treaty were meagre enough; yet they served to arouse the rulers of France. The cession of Louisiana to England and Spain had never ceased to be a subject of regret to Frenchmen, and no opportunity to recover what was left of its province had ever been suffered to go by unused. Vergeunes had attempted to secure a retrocession of the Spanish part in 1782. The Republic renewed the attempt at the peace of Bale in 1795; and now in 1797, when Spain seemed to be yielding to the United States, the French Directory once more sought to recover Louisiana. The bribe was most tempting; for it was nothing less than an offer to join the three legations just wrung by France from the Pope, to the duchy of Parma, and so make a principality for the son of the Duke of Parma, who was son-in-law to the King of Spain. The offer was refused, for the king would not share in the spoils taken from the head of his Church. It happened, however, that just at this moment the French Directory bestowed the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs on Talleyrand, a man whose bead was full of schemes for French colonization, and who longed perhaps more earnestly than any other Frenchman to see the Republic in possession of Louisiana and the Floridas. So much in earnest was he that the moment he came into office he began to put his scheme of colonization into execution, and when, in 1798, a new minister was sent to the court of Madrid the envoy was instructed to renew negotiations for a retrocession. "The court of Madrid," said Talleyrand, "ever blind to its own interests, and never docile to the lessons of experience, has again quite recently adopted a measure which cannot fail to produce the worst effects upon its political existence and on the preservation of its colonies. The United States have been put in possession of the forts situated along the Mississippi which the Spaniards had occupied as posts essential to arrest the progress of the Americans in those countries." The Americans, he then went on to say, were determined to rule America. This ambition could only be stopped "by shutting them up within the limits which nature seems to have traced for them." As Spain could not do this, she would do well to cede Florida and Louisiana to France, in order that the Republic might do it for her. The rupture between the United States and France followed immediately. Talleyrand fell from power, Napoleon was recalled from Egypt, and on November 9, 1799, effected his coup d'ttat and made himself master of France. The rise of Napoleon was speedily followed by the return of Talleyrand to office and by a renewal of the old negotiations for Louisiana. This time the attempt was attended with success, and on October 1, 1800, a treaty of retrocession was signed at San Udefonso. Spain then gave back to Napoleon the province of Louisiana as she had received it from Louis; Napoleon in return promised to add Tuscany to the duchy of Parma, make of the two a kingdom of Etruria, and give it to the daughter and son-in-law of King Charles of Spain. The promise was kept, the kingdom was duly formed, and on October 15, 1801, the order transferring Louisiana to France was signed at Barcelona. Preparations for occupying the territory were now pushed rapidly forward, and late in November, 1801, Leclerc set sail, with an immense fleet, and ten thousand men fully equipped, for Louisiana. On his way he was to stop at San Domingo and subject Toussaint Louverture and his black republic to the rule of France. The task proved harder than was expected. Leclerc went no further; and when some fifty thousand soldiers and sailors had perished by fever and by the sword, Napoleon abandoned all thought of colonizing Louisiana, and began to seek for some excuse to withdraw from San Domingo. He found this excuse in a new war with England, and, needing money to carry on the war, gladly sold Louisiana to the United States. The retrocession to France was known in this country in the summer of 1801. At the time it aroused little interest; but the arrival of the army at San Domingo and the conduct of Leclerc put a new face on the matter, and so alarmed Jefferson that he instructed the ministers to France and Spain to seek for the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to the United States. While awaiting the result of his despatches, he was astonished to hear that the Spanish Intendant had closed the port of New Orleans and deprived the citizens of the United States of the right of deposit. The whole West instantly cried out for war; but Congress preferred negotiation, and in a few months Monroe was on his way to France to offer two millions for the island of Orleans. The offer of the United States was met by a tender of the whole province, which, after some higgling over the price, was finally purchased for fifteen million dollars in April, 1803. In the treaty of purchase no boundary was given. When the United States took possession in December, 1803, the eastern boundary was the Mississippi from its source to the thirty-first parallel; but where the source of the Mississippi was no man knew, and what was the boundary below 31° was long in dispute. Americans claimed as far eastward as the Perdido River, but Spain would acknowledge no claim east of the Mississippi and south of the thirty-first parallel save the island of Orleans. The south boundary was, of course, the Gulf of Mexico; but whether it extended along the gulf to the Sabine or the Rio Bravo was not settled. The mountains, wherever they might be, were believed to bound it on the west, and the possessions of Great Britain, wherever they might be, were known to bound it on the north. Want of definite boundaries in the southeast and in the southwest now involved us in a serious dispute with Spain, which war abroad and at home prolonged till 1819. The treaty of that year secured Florida at a cost in round numbers of five million dollars, and for the first time drew a boundary-line in the southwest. Starting at the mouth of the Sabine River, it passed up that river to the parallel of 32°, thence due north to the Red River, westward along that river to the one-hundredth meridian, thence due north to the Arkansas River, whose south bank it followed to the river's source in the mountains. As nobody knew where the source of the Arkansas was, the treaty provided that the line should be drawn from the source, when found, either due north or due south, as occasion might require, to the parallel of 42° north latitude, and thence westward along that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Just before the treaty of 1819 was made with Spain, the convention of 1818 was concluded with Great Britain, and a northern boundary was given to Louisiana. This line of demarcation between the territory of the United States and the territory of His Britannic Majesty was to begin at "the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods," run "due north or south as the case may be" to the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude and westward along that parallel to the summit of the Stony—or, as we know them, the Rocky—Mountains. The region which lies beyond the mountains, and is now comprised in the States of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, was claimed by each nation. But, as it was still a wilderness, to dispute about it seemed so idle that "the high contracting parties" agreed that for ten years they would hold the country in joint occupancy, and that such occupancy should in no wise affect the claim of either. The claim of the United States rested on the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Gray in 1792, on the exploration of the country by Lewis and Clarke in 18041806, and on the settlement built by the Missouri Fur Company at Fort Hall in 1808 and by the Pacific Fur Company at Astoria in 1810. |