Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/38

28 and New Mexico, as well as to those which, under various pretexts, the government has successively seized upon from the Indians.

In the first, they have already erected three States, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois, besides the territories of Orleans, Missouri, and part of Alabama, which it is contemplated also to form into a State.

In the second, the State of Indiana has been established, and the territories of Michigan and the North West have been organized, to say nothing of the usurpations, which have been made in both, to enlarge the limits of the United States. It is well known, that the Federal Constitution admits no state into the Union as sovereign and independent, unless it has at least 60,000 inhabitants. Until the population reaches this number, the country which it occupies, cannot enter into the Union, but exists as a territory of it, governed by the President. From what has been said, it might be thought, that the population in the countries acquired from the ultramarine possessions of Spain, or usurped from her, was necessarily very considerable, since three States and several territories have already been formed; but I have guarded against this erroneous calculation, by pointing out the facility and the interest in exaggerating the population, and supposing it greater than it really is. This is practised with still greater artifice and collusion in the territories, which