Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/101

84 prohibition that Congress should not erect or establish in that portion of the ceded territory situated north of latitude 32° any new state or territorial government, and that they should not grant to any people excepting Indians any right or title whatever to any part of the said portion of the said territory."

Of any jealousy between North and South which could be sharpened by such a restriction of northern and extension of southern territory, Jefferson was unaware. He proposed his amendment in good faith as a means of holding the Union together by stopping its too rapid extension into the wilderness.

Coldly as his ideas were received in the Cabinet, Jefferson did not abandon them. Another month passed, and a call was issued for a special meeting of Congress October 17 to provide the necessary legislation for carrying the treaty into effect. As the summer wore away, Jefferson imparted his opinions to persons outside the Cabinet. He wrote, August 12, to Breckinridge of Kentucky a long and genial letter. Congress, he supposed, after ratifying the treaty and paying for the country, "must then appeal to the nation for an additional article to the Constitution approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized. The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union.  The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country,