Spain and
other States." This was simply giving to us what Spain had given
to France, and that was only what France had before given to Spain,
--complicated with such treaties as Spain might have made during
the thirty-seven years of her ownership. It was evident, therefore,
from the very hour of the acquisition, that we should have abundant
trouble with our only remaining neighbors in North America, Spain
and Great Britain, in adjusting the boundaries of the vast country
which we had so successfully acquired from France.

Fortunately for the United States, the patriotic and far-seeing
administration of Mr. Jefferson was as energetic in confirming as
it had been in acquiring our title to the invaluable domain. As
soon as the treaty was received the President called an extra
session of Congress, which assembled on the 17th of October, 1803.
Before the month had expired the treaty was confirmed, and the
President was authorized to take possession of the territory of
Louisiana, and to maintain therein the authority of the United
States. This was not a mere paper warrant for exhibiting a nominal
supremacy by floating our flag, but it gave to the President the
full power to employ the army and navy of the United States and
the militia of the several States to the number of eighty thousand.
It was a wise and energetic measure for the defense of our newly
acquired territory, which in the disturbed condition of Europe,
with all the Great Powers arming from Gibraltar to the Baltic,
might at any moment be invaded or imperiled. The conflict of arms
did not occur until nine years after; and it is a curious and not
unimportant fact, that the most notable defeat of the British troops
in the second war of Independence, as the struggle of 1812 has been
well named, occurred on the soil of the territory for whose protection
the original precaution had been taken by Jefferson.

With all these preparations for defense, Mr. Jefferson did not wait
to have our title to Louisiana questioned or limited. He set to
work at once to proclaim it throughout the length and breadth of
the territory which had been ceded, and to the treaty of cession
he gave the most liberal construction. According to the President,
Louisiana stretched as far to the northward as the Lake of the
Woods; towards the west as far as the Rio Grande in the lower part,
and, in the upper part, to the main chain of mountains dividing
the waters of the Pacific from the wa