It describes with force the desires, ambition,
and necessities of a great nation, and it tells with historical
truth the story of the success of that nation. It was a great
thing done when the purchase of the whole of Louisiana was
completed by the United States - that cession by France, however,
having been made at the instance of Napoleon, and not in
consequence of any demand made by the States. The district then
called Louisiana included the present State of that name and the
States of Missouri and Arkansas - included also the right to
possess, if not the absolute possession of all that enormous
expanse of country running from thence back to the Pacific: a huge
amount of territory, of which the most fertile portion is watered
by the Mississippi and its vast tributaries. That river and those
tributaries are navigable through the whole center of the American
continent up to Wisconsin and Minnesota. To the United States the
navigation of the Mississippi was, we may say, indispensable; and
to the States, when no longer united, the navigation will be
equally indispensable. But the days are gone when any country such
as Spain was can interfere to stop the highways of the world with
the all but avowed intention of arresting the progress of
civilization. It may be that the North and the South can never
again be friends as the component parts of one nation.
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