with Federalist facility. Federalists from
New England looked beyond the immediate issue and discerned the
inevitable economic as well as political consequences of westward
expansion. The men who would have naturally populated the vacant lands
of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont would inevitably seek this "new
paradise of Louisiana," observed a New England pamphleteer. Jeffersonian
Democracy rather than Federalism would become the creed of these
transplanted New Englanders, if Ohio were a fair example of future
Western Commonwealths. Moreover, as these new States would in all
probability enter the Union as slaveholding communities, they would
further impair the influence of the Eastern States in the National
Government. Even the remnant of the Federalist party in the South
opposed the purchase of Louisiana, fearing that the Atlantic States
would be depressed in influence by the formation of great States in the
West.

Upon one great constitutional principle, both Federalists and
Republicans were disposed to agree: that the United States had the power
to acquire foreign territory, either by treaty or conquest. Senator
Tracy, of Connecticut, conceded this point, but denied that the
inhabitants of an acquired territory could be admitted into the Union
and be made citizens by treaty. In providing that "the inhabitants of
the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union," the
Administration had exceeded its constitutional authority. The consent of
all the States was necessary to admit into the Union. Senator Pickering,
of Massachusetts, held the same view. "I believe the assent of each
individual State to be necessary," said he, "for the admission of a
foreign country as an associate in the Union, in like manner as in a
commercial house the consent of each member would be necessary to admit
a new partner into the company." To this line of argument, Taylor, of
Virginia, replied that the words of the treaty did not contemplate the
erection of the ceded territory as a State, but its incorporation as a
Territory.

On October 17, 1803, the Senate ratified the treaty by a vote
of twenty-four to seven. Two constitutional principles seemed,
therefore, to be decided: the Government had a constitutional
right to acquire foreign territory; and the treaty-making power could
incorporate--whatever that expression might mean--such territory into
the Union. A third matter of policy had yet to be determined: what
powers had Congress