Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/252

232 Thus it turns out that there was not a treaty pending between Spain and this Republic for the annexation of that territory by virtue of which the President considered an inchoate right to have accrued to the United States which would give him the power to march troops into that territory, but that by virtue of the Louisiana purchase, a treaty duly consented to by the Senate, duly ratified by the United States as well as France, the United States claimed that territory to belong to them as part of their own domain.

The Senator certainly is not ignorant of the fact that from 1803 to 1819 just that territory was claimed by Spain. She claimed that the Louisiana purchase was bounded on the east by the Mississippi river, while we claimed, as the Senator knows, that it was bounded by the Perdido.

I know that very well; but will the Senator pretend that President Madison took military possession, in the way indicated, of that territory by virtue of an inchoate right created by a treaty from which he assumed to have derived the power to march troops in there to protect the interests of the United States? No, sir; I will convince the Senator, out of President Madison's own mouth, that he claimed that territory as having come to the United States under the Louisiana purchase.

That is a question of fact, not what the President claimed. The fact is that pending that treaty he did send troops. For political reasons, one cause may have been given or another; but the fact was that the troops were sent there.

Does the Senator say there was a treaty pending at that time?

Not pending. The treaty was made in 1819.