in our political history. The circumstances in all, are of course not
precisely the same, but the policy is identical. The conduct of our
government in regard to General Jackson's invasion of Florida for the
suppression of Indian cruelties may be referred to. But congress might
have found a still more analogous case, in the dispute between Spain and
the United States as to the eastern limits of Louisiana. Spain alleged
that Florida extended to the Mississippi, embracing what was then a
wilderness, but, now, forms the populous States of Alabama and
Mississippi; while our government asserted that all the territory
eastward of the Mississippi and extending to the Rio Perdido belonged of
right to us by virtue of the treaty concluded at Paris on the 30th of
April, 1803. By acts of congress in 1803 and 1804 the president was
authorized to take possession of the territory ceded by France, to
establish a provisional government, to lay duties on goods imported into
it; and, moreover, _whenever he deemed it expedient_, to erect the bay
and river Mobile into a separate district, in which he might establish a
port of entry and delivery.

In 1810, President Madison believing that the United States had too long
acquiesced in the temporary continuance of this territory under Spanish
domain, and that nothing was to be gained from Spain by candid
discussion and amicable negotiation for several years, solved the
difficulty by taking possession of Mobile and Baton Rouge and extending
our jurisdiction to the Perdido. This possession, he took means to
ensure, if needful, by military force. Mr. Madison's conduct was
assailed in congress by the federalists who regarded it as an
unjustifiable and offensive demonstration against Spain, but it was
defended with equal warmth by the opposition,--especially by Mr.
Clay,--and the Rio Perdido has ever since continued to form the western
limit of Florida.[96]

* * * * *

When nations are about to undertake the dread responsibility of war, and
to spread the sorrow and ruin which always mark the pathway of
victorious or defeated armies, they should pause to contemplate the
enormity of their enterprise as well as the principles that can alone
justify them in the sight of God and man. Human life cannot be lawfully
destroyed, assailed or endangered for any other object than that of just
defence of person or principle, yet it is not a legal consequence that
defensive wars