THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND PRECEDING SPANISH INTRIGUES FOR DISMEMBERMENT OF THE UNION.*

BY NATHANIEL PITT LANGFORD.

"The Mississippi river," says George Bancroft, "is the guardian and the pledge of the union of the States of America. Had they been confined to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, there would have been no geographical unity between them; and the thread of connection between lands that merely fringed the Atlantic must soon have been sundered. The father of rivers gathers his waters from all the clouds that break between the Alleghanies and the farthest ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The ridges of the eastern chain bow their heads at the north and the south, so that long before science became the companion of man, Nature herself pointed out to the barbarous races how short portages join his tributary waters to those of the Atlantic coast. At the other side his mightiest arm interlocks with the arms of the Oregon and the Colorado; and, by the conformation of the earth itself, marshals highways to the Pacific. From his remotest springs he refuses to suffer his waters to be divided; but as he bears them all to the bosom of the ocean, the myriads of flags that wave above his head are all the ensigns of one people. States larger than kingdoms flourish where he passes, and beneath his step cities start into being, more marvellous in their reality than the fabled creations of enchantment. His magnificent valley, lying in the best part of the temperate zone, salubrious and wonderfully fertile, is the chosen muster-ground of the various elements of human culture brought together by men summoned from all the civilized nations of the earth, and joined in the bonds of common citizenship by the strong invincible *Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, February 13, 1899.

attraction of republican freedom. Now that science has come to be the household friend of trade and commerce and travel, and that Nature has lent to wealth and intellect the use of her constant forces, the hills, once walls of division, are scaled or pierced or levelled, and the two oceans, between which the republic has unassailably intrenched itself against the outward world, are bound together across the continent by friendly links of iron. From the grandeur of destiny, foretold by the possession of that river and the lands drained by its waters, the Bourbons of Spain, hoping to act in concert with Great Britain as well as France, would have excluded the United States, totally and forever."

In the early days of our republic, the great national artery so justly eulogized by our leading historian, was the fruitful cause of the most dangerous intrigues, aimed at the perpetuity of our Union. The inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, cut off by the Appalachian range from all commercial intercourse with the Atlantic seaboard, were necessarily dependent upon the Mississippi for access to the markets of the world. The mouth of that river was, as to them, the threshold of subsistence. Extensive possessions, richness of soil, and immensity of production were of little value without the means which this great channel alone afforded for the establishment of commercial relations with other nations. The most prolific, as well as most unbounded region of varied agricultural production in the world was comparatively valueless without this single convenience.

At the time whereof I now speak, the mouth of the Mississippi and the country adjacent was owned and controlled by Spain, then a powerful nation, jealous of her possessions in America, and unfriendly to the young republic which had suddenly sprung into existence on the northern borders of her empire. She had assented to the stipulation in the treaty between Great Britain, the United States, and herself in 1783 in which the independence of our country was recognized, that the navigation of the Mississippi from its source to its mouth should be and should forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States. This privilege, sufficient for ordinary purposes in time of peace, was liable at any moment and on almost any pretence, as we

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shall hereafter see, to be absolutely denied, or to be hampered with oppressive duties, or to be used for purposes dangerous to the very existence of our government.

FORESIGHT OF WASHINGTON.

The first individual to see the evils which might flow from a dependence upon this outlet to the ocean by the people living west of the Alleghanies, was Washington himself. He had carefully noted the flow of the rivers beyond the Alleghanies, and the portages between them and the rivers flowing down their eastern slope, at the time of his first visit into that region before the Revolution, and was only hindered from forming a company to unite them by an artificial channel, by the occurrence of the Revolution itself. The year after peace was declared he again visited the country bordering the upper waters of the Ohio, and at this time regarded the improvement not only of immense importance in its commercial aspect to the States of Maryland and Virginia, but as one of the necessities of the general government. "He had noticed," says Washington Irving, "that the flanks and rear of the United States were possessed by foreign and formidable powers, who might lure the Western people into a trade and alliance with them. The Western States, he observed, stood as it were on a pivot, so that the touch of a feather might turn them any way. They had looked down the Mississippi and been tempted in that direction by the facilities of sending everything down the stream, whereas they had no means of coming to the Atlantic sea-board but by long land transportation and rugged roads. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniard, it was true, almost barred the use of the Mississippi; but they might change their policy and invite trade in that direction. The retention by the British Government, also, of the posts of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego, though contrary to the spirit of the treaty, shut up the channel of trade in that quarter."

Washington's views were laid before the legislature of Virginia, and were received with such favor that he was induced to repair to Richmond to give them his personal support. His suggestions and representations during this visit gave the first impulse to the great system of internal improvements since pursued throughout the United States.