It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation.

To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly.

But I require money to make war on the richest nation in the world.

It was certainly our purchase of Louisiana that enabled us to secure the Spanish title to the shores of the Pacific, and without that title we could hardly have maintained our claim.

The purchase of Louisiana may therefore be fairly said to have carried with it and secured to us our possession of Oregon.

England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest degree embarrassing, if not disastrous, to the Union.

If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain, would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the…

England would thus have had her colonies planted on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her formidable navy confronted the young republic.

No colonial acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as that of Louisiana would have proved.

This fact was clearly seen by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States.

The obvious reason is that she dreaded the complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so heavy a burden in the impending European conflict.

The success of the Lewis and Clarke expedition aided greatly in sustaining our title to the Oregon country.

In the vexatious war with the Seminoles, General Jackson did not hesitate to march across the line, capture Pensacola, and seize the Barancas.

To compose the boundary troubles with Spain, a treaty was negotiated in 1819, which, with many gains, entailed some signal losses upon the United States.

Thus all boundary disputes with Spain were ended, and peace was secured, though at a great cost; as events in after years so fully proved.

Louisiana sought to enter the Union in 1811, and then for the first time occurred an agitation in Congress over the admission of a slave State.

Opposition to it was not, however, grounded so much upon the existence of slavery as upon the alleged violation of the Constitution in forming a State from territory not included in the original government of the Union.

Many Northern men had opposed the purchase of the territory from France, believing it to be unconstitutional; and they dreaded the introduction of senators and representatives from territory which they considered foreign.

A majority of the people, both North and South, were convinced that the ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi was of inestimable value to the Union, and that it could not be permanently secured except by admitting as a State the…

The advantage of a loyal and devoted population at New Orleans, identified in interest and in sympathy with the government, was too evident to need argument.

If the weight of reason had not already been on the side of admitting Louisiana, the necessities of war would have enforced it.

A violent agitation at once arose, continued for two years, and was finally allayed by the famous compromise of 1820.

The outbreak was so sudden, its course so turbulent, and its subsidence so complete, that for many years it was regarded as phenomenal in our politics, and its repetition in the highest degree improbable if not impossible.

Geographically remote, differing in soil, climate, and products, incapable of competing with each other in any pursuit, they were thrown into rivalry by the influence of the one absorbing question of negro slavery.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.