EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

THE United States owes to France two of her most precious possessions: the first, independence; the second, the Louisiana Purchase. The winning of the first has in THE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA been chronicled in the volume entitled The Revolution; the gaining of the second is set forth in the volume now before us. The imperial expanse of fertile country stretching from the Mississippi Delta to the borders of what is now Canada was a domain of which Spain and France, by whom it had been held, knew little. True, their trappers and traders had stations throughout it, and expeditions now and again penetrated its fastnesses, even in the early days before the Western settlements of the United States had waxed lusty and prosperous and burdened the Father of Waters with their productions in transit to the town of New Orleans. But the Spanish, after the French, and the French again after the Spanish, though in truth the later French occupation was short, made little avail of the riches at their hands; in fact, they grasped only and seemingly cared more to prevent others from profiting by the country to the westward of the Mississippi than to use it themselves. But this policy, this opposition to American development, was destined to operate to the advantage of the new republic; for it forced it to take action destined to put an end to the intolerable situation by which the entire portion of its territory west of the Alleghanies was compelled to forego the free use of its natural outlet, to the world's commerce,-the Mississippi River.

this juncture that we find France again the benefactor of the United States, and for the same reason-antagonism to Great Britain—that had caused her a quarter of a century before to give her aid to the colonies warring for independence.

The tremendous importance of the Louisiana Purchase is threefold: as we have suggested, it gave to the Western States and the Northwest Territory free communication with the Gulf of Mexico and thus with the world. It added to the territory of the United States a country exceeding in extent the original thirteen States themselves. But the third result of the cession of the Louisiana Purchase by France will by some be placed far above its fellows in the scale of importance. That third result has been so far-reaching that the end of its influence has not only not been approached, but it is not even to be predicted. In other words, the acquisition of the great district known as Louisiana was the first step in the progress of expansion that has given to the United States their position upon the North American continent and, we may add, in the world.

Benjamin Franklin has been rightly called the first great expansionist; the second was James Monroe, as some have said; and the third, Thomas Jefferson. It was Thomas Jefferson who made possible the ratification of the plans of Monroe, and against his own fixed opinions of constitutionality Jefferson secured to the United States Louisiana, as Monroe afterward secured Florida. The debates upon Louisiana in the first decade of the nineteenth century are of the greatest importance, and the opinions these enunciated. by those favoring or opposing the acquisition of Louisiana, are the bases of countless arguments that for a century have furnished arms to contending politicians.

A few of these arguments had root in the controversies that had attended the creation of the States of Tennessee and Kentucky and in the organization of the Northwest Territory, but the case of Louisiana differed radically from that of either the trans-Alleghany States or the Northwest.

In the former instance, we find the question one of the acquisition of foreign territory bearing a foreign population with alien manners, laws, and language; the other was a matter of the organization of territory that belonged to the original States and was inhabited for the most part by men from those States. But the argument of expediency was, after all, the deciding one; and for a few millions of dollars, less, in fact, than the productions for one year of the least of the States formed from it, was the Louisiana Purchase made a part of the possessions of the United States.

The story of the exploration and settlement of this great territory is one that can be recounted in two ways: one, lightly, as a tale of adventure; and if so recounted, an author has a wide opportunity to hold the attention of the readers, for there is no more dramatic stage in national progress than the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Purchase by what has been aptly entitled the Westward Movement. By the second way, we may construct a narrative of as great interest as in the first case, but with the added advantage of strict adherence to historical method. Following this second plan, we divide the great migration into waves. The first of these brought to the West those pioneers who traversed the passes of the Alleghanies or followed the south-trending river valleys and planted the first settlements in that wide territory intervening between the mountains and Mississippi River. The next wave of these adventurers laid the foundations of the great States that now lie upon each side of Ohio River, and gave to the Northwest Territory that strong and deep-laid foundation that has preserved American institutions in the face of the great foreign influence that has for fifty years been pressing westward. The last of the great migrating movements is a strictly commercial one. It follows closely upon but is not a part of the exodus from the East that came in the fifties because of the discovery of gold in California, in the sixties to advance sectional principles, and in the seventies to win cheap lands, and it has no

connection with the foreign migration that has centred to a marked degree in Wisconsin, though it gave many inhabitants to the other States of the Northwest.

The account of these migrations is equalled in historical value, if not in popular regard, by the description of the manner in which State after State in the Northwest Territory and in the Louisiana Purchase developed from the first stage of Territorial government. This subject presents many features of interest. In every case, attendant conditions govern procedure; but, despite this, we are able to deduce certain general rules controlling the government of Territories and their creation into States. For this purpose a study of the Enabling Acts and the State constitutions is necessary, but the study is well repaid by the manner in which the knowledge thus gained makes clear the great movements by which the United States have gained in territory and strength-a strength arising as well from mental as material resources.

These subjects, the development of the trans-Alleghany States south of the Ohio, the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the formation of States from it, the purchase of Louisiana and the development of its States, the great migrations which have peopled these vast spaces of the West, the manner in which governmental forms have passed from the lowest territorial stage to statehood, and the general principles deducible from these progressions, are considered in the present volume, and the treatment given them is such as to win for Professor Geer's Louisiana Purchase and the Westward Movement a place of its own among historical works. It is therefore an especially useful volume of THE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA.

Johns Hopkins University.

GUY CARLEton Lee.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THIS book is written to show how the country west of the original thirteen colonies became populated and how these western people established their governments. The attempt is made to present the essential elements in the changes which transformed a wilderness into self-governing States, and the processes are presented by which this was accomplished.

In passing into the Mississippi valley the institutions of the Atlantic States were modified so as to meet new conditions. Not only did the people who settled in the Mississippi valley meet changed circumstances to which they had to fit their institutions, but the nation faced a problem for which it did not find itself well prepared, and for which it had no precedents. It is not only of historic interest but of present-day importance to understand how the national government met the questions which came as a result of expansion. The growth of the West has influenced the nation as a whole. Changes in the interpretation of the Constitution were made to meet the unexpected conditions resulting from the westward movement; and men who were neither northern nor southern, but western, had a share in influencing the administration of national affairs.

An attempt is made to show how geographical conditions influenced the movement and spread of population. It is shown that the mountain barriers even in the south were not difficult to pass, and that the journey to the West from the northern States was much easier. The influence of the