We should then be as much stronger there, comparatively, than Great Britain, as she is now stronger than we are; and it would then be as idle for her to attempt to assert and maintain her exclusive claim to the territory against us, as it would now be in us to attempt it against her. Let us be wise and abide our time; and it will accomplish all that we desire with more certainty and with infinitely less sacrifice than we can without it." Speech of Mr. Calhoun, on the Oregon bill, in the Senate, Jan. 24, 1843; 4 "It is our policy to increase by growing and spreading out into unoccupied regions, assimilating all we incorporate. In a word, to increase by accretion, and not through conquest by the addition of masses held together by the cohesion of force. No system can be more unsuited to the latter process, or better adapted to the former, than our admirable Federal system. If it should not be resisted in its course, it will probably fulfill its destiny, without disturbing our neighbors or putting in jeopardy the general peace; but if it be opposed by foreign interference, a new direction would be given to our energy, much less favorable to harmony with our neighbors and to the general peace of the world. The change would be undesirable to us, and much less in accord with what I have assumed to be primary objects of policy on the part of France, England, and Mexico." Mr. Calhoun, Sec. of State, to Mr. King, Aug. 12, 1844, MS. Inst., France, XV. 8, 12. This passage seems to have suggested the title of § 72 of Wharton's Int. Law Digest-"Accretion, not colonization, the policy of the United States." It appears, however, that the idea of Mr. Calhoun was accretion by means of colonization, as opposed to the increase of territory by conquest. Indeed, "accretion" and "colonization," instead of involving opposite conceptions, rather represent different aspects of the same principle, accretion being the result of the colonizing process described by Mr. Calhoun in his speech on the Oregon bill, supra. "Until recently, the acquisition of outlying territory has not been regarded as desirable by us. The purchase of Russian America and the proposed purchase of the Danish West India islands of St. Thomas and St. John may seem to indicate a reversal of the policy adverted to. Those measures, however, may be presumed to have been adopted for special reasons." But, in any event, it appeared to be unadvisable to decide upon an offer of other distant territory while the question of St. Thomas and St. John was pending, and, even if that question were disposed of, the President, before making up his mind in regard to such an offer, probably would prefer to consult Congress in regard to it, either directly or indirectly. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bartlett, min. to Sweden, June 17, 1869, MS. It is not the policy of the United States to undertake in Africa the management of movements within the particular range of private enterprise. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Sir E. Thornton, Apr. 8, 1873, MS. Notes, Gr. Brit. "The policy of this Government, as declared on many occasions in the past, has tended toward avoidance of possessions disconnected from the main continent. Had the tendency of the United States been to extend territorial dominion beyond intervening seas, opportunities have not been wanting to effect such a purpose, whether on the coast of Africa, in the West Indies, or in the South Pacific. No such opportunity has been hitherto embraced, and but little hope could be offered that Congress, which must in the ultimate resort be brought to decide. the question of such transmarine jurisdiction, would favorably regard such an acquisition as His Excellency proposes. At any rate, in its political aspect merely, this Government is unprepared to accept the proposition without subjection to such wishes as Congress and the people of the United States through Congress may see fit to express.” Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Langston, June 20, 1882, MS. Inst. "A conviction that a fixed policy, dating back to the origin of our constitutional Government, was considered to make it inexpedient to attempt territorial aggrandizement which would require maintenance by a naval force in excess of any yet provided for our national uses, has led this Government to decline territorial acquisitions. Even as simple coaling stations, such territorial acquisitions would involve responsibility beyond their utility. The United States have never deemed it needful to their national life to maintain impregnable fortresses along the world's highways of commerce. To considerations such as these prevailing in Congress the failure of the Samana lease and the St. Thomas purchase were doubtless due. During the years that have since elapsed there has been no evidence of a change in the views of the national legislature which would warrant the President in setting on foot new projects of the same character." Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Langston, Feb. 1, 1884, MS. Inst., "The policy of the United States, declared and pursued for more than a century, discountenances and in practice forbids distant colonial acquisitions. Our action in the past touching the acquisition of terri tory by purchase and cession, and our recorded disinclination to avail ourselves of voluntary proffers made by other powers to place territories under the sovereignty or protection of the United States, are matters of historical prominence." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pendleton, Sept. 7, 1885, MS. Inst., Germ. "Maintaining, as I do, the tenets of a line of precedents from Washington's day, which proscribe entangling alliances with foreign states, I do not favor a policy of acquisition of new and distant territory, or the incorporation of remote interests with our own." President Cleveland, First Annual Message, 1885. 2. LOUISIANA. § 101. The treaty and two conventions concluded at Paris under the date of April 30, 1803, by Messrs. Livingston and Monroe on the part of the United States, and M. Marbois on the part of France, in relation to the cession of Louisiana to the United States, were laid by President Jefferson before the Senate on the 17th of October, 1803, and the circumstances of the transaction were at the same time explained in a message to both Houses of Congress. Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 506. The treaty ceded Louisiana to the United States. One of the conventions provided for the payment by the United States to France of 60,000,000 francs; the other, for the payment by the United States of "debts" due by France to citizens of the United States to an amount not exceeding 20,000,000 francs. (Moore, Int. Arbitrations, V. 4434.) See Howard, The Louisiana Purchase (Chicago, 1902); Hosmer, Hist. of the Louisiana Purchase (New York, 1902). "On different occasions since the commencement of the French revolution, opinions and reports have prevailed that some part of the Spanish possessions, including New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi, had been or was to be transferred to France. The whole subject will deserve and engage your early and vigilant inquiries, and may require a very delicate and circumspect management. What the motives of Spain in this transaction may be, is not so obvious. The policy of France in it, so far, at least, as relates to the United States, cannot be mistaken. Although the two countries are again brought together by stipulations of amity and commerce, the confidence and cordiality which formerly subsisted have had a deep wound from the occurrences of late years. Jealousies probably still remain, that the Atlantic States have a partiality for Great Britain, which may, in future, throw their weight into the scale of that rival. It is more than possible, also, that, under the influence of those jealousies, and of the alarms which have at times prevailed, of H. Doc. 551-28 a projected operation for wresting the mouth of the Mississippi into the hands of Great Britain, she may have concluded a preoccupancy of it by herself to be a necessary safeguard against an event from which that nation would derive the double advantage of strengthening her hold on the United States, and of adding to her commerce a monopoly of the immense and fertile region communicating with the sea through a single outlet. This view of the subject, which suggests the difficulty which may be found in diverting France from the object, points, at the same time, to the means that may most tend to induce a voluntary relinquishment of it. She must infer, from our conduct. and our communications, that the Atlantic States are not disposed to enter, nor are in danger of being drawn, into partialities towards Great Britain unjust or injurious to France; that our political and commercial interests afford a sufficient guaranty against such a state of things; that, without the cooperation of the United States, Great Britain is not likely to acquire any part of the Spanish possessions on the Mississippi; and that the United States never have favored, nor, so long as they are guided by the clearest policy, ever can favor, such a project. She must be led to see again, and with a desire to shun, the danger of collisions between the two republics, from the contact of their territories; and from the conflicts in their regulations of a commerce involving the peculiarities which distinguish that of the Mississippi." Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, to Mr. Charles Pinckney, minister to Spain, June A treaty had already been concluded, at St. Ildefonso, Oct. 1, 1800, for the "Should it be found that the cession from Spain to France has irrevocably taken place, or certainly will take place, sound policy will require, in that state of things, that nothing be said or done which will unnecessarily irritate our future neighbors, or check the liberality with which they may be disposed to exercise in relation to the trade and navigation through the mouth of the Mississippi; everything being equally avoided, at the same time, which may compromit the rights of the United States beyond those stipulated in the treaty between them and Spain. In the next place, it will deserve to be tried whether France cannot be induced to make over to the United States the Floridas, if included in the cession to her from Spain, or at least West Florida, through which several of our rivers, particularly the important river Mobile, empty themselves into the sea." Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, to Mr. Livingston, minister to France, Sept. 28, 1801, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 510. It completely States, and will There is on the "The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France works most sorely on the United States. reverses all the political relations of the United form a new epoch in our political course. globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of threeeighths of our territory must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there so that her possession of the place would hardly be felt by us, and it would not, perhaps, be very long before some circumstance might arise which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. Not so can it ever be in the hands of France; the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us and our character, which, though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising, and energetic as any nation on earth. These circumstances render it impossible that France and. the United States can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to retain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect. It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her, for, however greater her force is than ours, compared in the abstract, it is nothing in comparison to ours when to be exerted on our soil, but it is from a sincere love of peace, and a firm persuasion that, bound to France by the interests and strong sympathies still existing in the minds of our citizens, and holding relative positions which insure their continuance, we are secure of a long course of peace, whereas the change of friends, which will be rendered necessary if France changes that position, embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of Europe. In that case France will have held possession of New Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of which it will be wrested from her. Will this short-lived possession have been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight into the scale of her enemy? Will not the amalgamation of a young, thriving nation continue to that enemy the |