Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/182

150 a constitutional amendment to the effect: &quot;Louisiana, as ceded by France, is made a part of the United States.&quot; His letter to Senator John Breckinridge, of Kentucky, explains his views (Jefferson s Complete Works, H. A. Washington, vol. 4, pp. 499, 500):

&quot;Objections are raising to the eastward against the vast extent of our boundaries, and propositions are made to exchange Louisiana, or a part of it, for the Floridas. But, as I have said, we shall get the Floridas without, and I would not give one inch of the waters of the Mississippi to any nation.&quot; * * * &quot;These Federalists see in this acquisition the formation of a new confederacy, embracing all the waters of the Mississippi, on both sides of it, and a separation of its western waters from us.&quot; * * * &quot;The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for the incorporation of foreign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it and throw them selves on their country for doing for them, unauthorized, what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do, it. It is the case of a guardian investing the money of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory, and saying to him when of age, ’I did this for your good; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can. I thought it my duty to risk myself for you. But we shall not be disavowed by the nation, and their act of indemnity will confirm and not weaken the Constitution, by more strongly marking out its limits. We have nothing later from Europe than the public papers give. I hope yourself and all the Western members will make a sacred point of being at the first day of the meeting of Congress; for, vestra res regitur&quot;