purchase of Florida
from Spain. Spanish authority in North America had long been little more
than a thin disguise, behind which the British plotted and operated
against the welfare of the United States. General Jackson had found it
necessary in 1814 to capture Pensacola, which the English were using as a
base of hostilities. Again in 1818 General Jackson invaded Florida to
punish Indians who, incited by British subjects under Spanish protection,
were plundering and murdering in American settlements. Jackson took by
force the Spanish post of St. Marks, entered Pensacola, and attacked the
fort at Barrancas, compelling it to surrender. Two British subjects who
had stirred up the Indians to attack the Americans were executed.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sustained Jackson, notwithstanding
the protests of Spain, and the latter power concluded to yield to the
inevitable, and sold Florida to the United States on the extinction of
the various American claims for spoliation, for the satisfaction of which
the United States agreed to pay $5,000,000 to the claimants. Thus all
foreign authority was extinguished in the Southeast and the American flag
waved from the Florida Keys to the boundaries of New Spain.

CHAPTER XXX.

The Missouri Compromise--Erie Canal Opened--Political Parties and Great
National Issues--President Jackson Crushes the United States Bank--South
Carolina Pronounces the Tariff Law Void--Jackson's Energetic Action--A
Compromise--Territory Reserved for the Indians--The Seminole War--
Osceola's Vengeance--His Capture and Death--The Black Hawk War--Abraham
Lincoln a Volunteer--Texas War for Independence--Massacre of the Alamo
--Mexican Defeat at San Jacinto--The Mexican President a Captive--Texas
Admitted to the Union--Oregon--American Statesmen Blinded by the Hudson
Bay Company--Marcus Whitman's Ride--Oregon Saved to the Union--The "Dorr
War."

The Missouri Compromise, by which Congress, after admitting Missouri as a
slave State, took the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes as a
dividing line through the rest of the Louisiana Purchase, between slavery
and freedom, averted for another generation the great struggle between
North and South. At peace with the rest of the world, the United States
had time to devote to national development without the distraction of
war, and financial questions, the tariff and internal improvements
engrossed the attention of Congress and of the States. The openi