our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon
will be under the fostering care of the government, we shall no longer
experience these evils." With the Republicans nationalized, the
Federalist party, as an organization, disappeared after a crushing
defeat in the presidential campaign of 1816.

=Monroe and the Florida Purchase.=--To the victor in that political
contest, James Monroe of Virginia, fell two tasks of national
importance, adding to the prestige of the whole country and deepening
the sense of patriotism that weaned men away from mere allegiance to
states. The first of these was the purchase of Florida from Spain. The
acquisition of Louisiana let the Mississippi flow "unvexed to the sea";
but it left all the states east of the river cut off from the Gulf,
affording them ground for discontent akin to that which had moved the
pioneers of Kentucky to action a generation earlier. The uncertainty as
to the boundaries of Louisiana gave the United States a claim to West
Florida, setting on foot a movement for occupation. The Florida swamps
were a basis for Indian marauders who periodically swept into the
frontier settlements, and hiding places for runaway slaves. Thus the
sanction of international law was given to punitive expeditions into
alien territory.

The pioneer leaders stood waiting for the signal. It came. President
Monroe, on the occasion of an Indian outbreak, ordered General Jackson
to seize the offenders, in the Floridas, if necessary. The high-spirited
warrior, taking this as a hint that he was to occupy the coveted region,
replied that, if possession was the object of the invasion, he could
occupy the Floridas within sixty days. Without waiting for an answer to
this letter, he launched his expedition, and in the spring of 1818 was
master of the Spanish king's domain to the south.

There was nothing for the king to do but to make the best of the
inevitable by ceding the Floridas to the United States in return for
five million dollars to be paid to American citizens having claims
against Spain. On Washington's birthday, 1819, the treaty was signed. It
ceded the Floridas to the United States and defined the boundary between
Mexico and the United States by drawing a line from the mouth of the
Sabine River in a northwesterly direction to the Pacific. On this
occasion even Monroe, former opponent of the Constitution, forgot to
inquire whether new territory could be constitutionally acquir